About Us

Hill Interiors was founded in 1975 by Graham Hill and his family in Thirsk, North Yorkshire when an Indian supplier of brassware contacted Graham and asked if he would like to import a container of brass which worked out to be much better value than the Hills were currently buying from manufacturers in Birmingham. The Brassware sold very well in their Thirsk shop and from there Hills began to exhibit at trade shows and supplying shops up and down the country. From a garage business, came the next stage of Hill's development, our first warehouse on the Industrial Estate in Thirsk.

A company called Denix, met Graham at a trade show shortly after and agreed a UK exclusive deal to distribute their Replica Militaria, this led on to armour being bought and sold from around the world and eventually Hill Interiors Trademarked Ancient Warrior Brand being launche. From this we became the largest importers and distributors of militaria in the UK.

During the mid to late 80's, Nicholas Hill joined the family business, selling the products, doing deliveries and generally getting involved in all sides of the business gaining experience on all levels. At this stage, the business was being held back by dealing with UK wholesalers for giftware, so Nicholas and his wife Jenny took the long trip to China and came back with a variety of Giftware products and sold them very well. Some of you may remember the Sculptures UK branded products, such as resin fruit and veg figures? Soft Sculpture collectables? Scottish Piper figures (still selling well!). The company started to grow and could not squeeze into the old Thirsk Industrial Estate site anymore, so moved to our current location on the Northbound A1. More staff were taken on to cope with the increase in work load and sales. The Hill's became very friendly with WJ Sampson & Co in Belfast and agreed exclusive Irish distribution to Bill and his team. Between the Hill's and Sampson's the business continued to grow, with warehouse expansions, showroom expansions and new ranges being introduced.

That's when I came in, a quiet young lad, just out of school, as a very nervous sales person brought in to boost sales in the North of England that were low compared to the South and Scotland. Despite a very shaky start, my luck started to change and after a great run of sales (helped a lot by the incredible success of the products and large mail order companies) was offered a job as Sales Manager, where I looked after key accounts, trade shows and sales in General. I then spotted a weakness in the buying and got involved with that side. Graham has now retired to Spain, and I run the company alongside Nicholas Hill, our MD; Mike Temporal, our FD, Neil Johnson, our Despatch manager and a great team of office, warehouse and sales staff.M

In 2002, we noticed that we were unintentionally taking a bit of a turn with regards to the type of products we were selling. We were moving more towards Interior accessories, gifts for the home, lighting and occasional furniture. This was mostly because the factories we are dealing with stopped making giftware and started making Interior products! With this in mind, we changed our name, from what was Hill Giftware to Hill Interiors and took a serious look at our branding, we decided to introduce the 'Homeworks' brand to all our interior products (not a lot of people know, but the H stands for Hill and the S for Sampson). We got a new Hill Interiors logo, new trade show stand and went heavily into buying things that fit in with a Cream/Brown/Gold sort of theme that could be nicely displayed together. The product started to fit very much into the sort of look that we were aiming towards, and because of that we started to attract interest from interior companies as well as gift shops.

We then found a factory in the Far East who manufactured good solid furniture in a French style painted finish that looked like reclaimed solid wood furniture, and felt like it, but at a fraction of the cost. We saw a huge potential in this and worked an exclusive agreement with them, from that came the Rouen furniture collection, then the Louis XV, the Country and the Old Country. The Country furniture is now one of the best-selling furniture ranges in the UK, as I am writing this introduction to Hill Interiors; we have got 4 containers of Country and Old Country furniture being unloaded into loading bay 6 of our new warehouse behind our offices. Several inferior companies have tried to copy these ranges, but they come and go and never seem to quite get it right.

Our warehouses and offices are on the northbound side of the A1 motorway on a purpose built distribution site that is right in the middle of the UK. There always used to be 3 companies on the site, but now, Hill Interiors have bought the entire site and re-developed it all into goods storage. In fact, the showroom is now bigger than the entire warehouse was when I started now and we have bought land behind the site with a hope to expand further in future.

From 2009 to 2012, there has been a huge improvement scheme on the A1 to make it a 3 lane motorway; the A1 motorway has now been re-built to the East of the old A1, which has been turned into a 2 way road. So to get to us now, you have to come off the A1 at Ripon from the South and Bedale from the north and use the purpose built service road. Despite being a major disruption to us, the final result is absolutely perfect. We currently import on average one forty foot container per day and fill one 40' trailer with goods outwards.

Hill Interiors now employ 50+ staff on and off site and are always interested in hearing from people who think they could benefit our company in all areas.

We get orders in from this website, sales representatives on the road, trade shows, telephone, fax and email, process the orders same day and try and despatch all orders the same day to be with our customers the very next day. We tend to ask for first orders to be paid on a proforma basis and then future orders on a 30 day account, although this can be adapted to fit in with our customers current systems. We tend to send all orders out on no returnable pallets that the delivery driver will strip down and lift the boxes into the shop for you and can take or leave the empty pallets.

At the moment we specialise in supplying to shops in the UK, but as the pound is quite weak against the euro we are finding more and more companies from the continent are coming on board.

If you would like any further information, please feel free to give me a ring or drop me a line.

Thank you very much, we look forward to dealing with you.

Mr Julian Potter
General Manager
Hill Interiors