75 Years of outdoor sports retailing...
We started in 1933 in a small shop on Conran Street in Harpurhey, Manchester and quickly established ourselves as the place to visit to have boots expertly made and fitted and to decide on that important personalised nailing pattern!
Over the years, Brighams shops were always first to sell the latest innovations seeing clothing move from Ventile, to neoprene coated nylon and then to GORE-TEX fabrics. Footwear soon lost the nails and grew Vibram soles whilst leather uppers became suede and nylon and incorporated GORE-TEX liners.
As the summer of 2008 approaches, Ellis Brigham is still going strong (and is still family owned). We’ve got the world’s best brands and amazing products that will make your time spent in the mountains even more rewarding. Across the UK we have fantastic shops with friendly, knowledgeable staff who are all enthusiastic about the outdoors and understand implicitly your needs. Ellis Brigham’s shops really do bring the spirit of the mountains to the high street so check us out, we have mountains of experience!
1933
Frederick Ellis Brigham set up business making cycling shoes and walking boots in a tiny 'two up, two down' building on the outskirts of Manchester.
"...the trilby, which was hardly ever off, was the modern day 'baseball cap' of its time. His pants and jacket are Harris Tweed - as that was virtually all you could get in the late 1940s. His shirt would be Harris Tweed also. He is wearing Scottish 'beaters' shoes with huge toe 'spring' which made striding the fells easier and walking was a rocking-along motion. There would be a leather flap over the front lacing for extra weather protection. He always wore a pencil behind his ear. He's holding a pair of his hand made sandals.
In the shop door window are for sale Bartholomews folded fabric maps of the nearby Pennines & Lake District. The shop window has rubber wellingtons for the local trade, bottles of white Properts shoe cream for blanco-ing your Dunlop canvas 'Green Flash' shoes, hand made spiked running shoes, hand knitted Harris Tweed wool socks, and a rucksack by R.Burns Ltd - the best rucksack maker of the day being technically superior to the rival Brown Best rucksacks. Burns also made super light rucksacks from waterproof cotton Ventile fabric. This was the era of government surplus items like ex-army rucksacks, snow shoes for 2/6d per pair and skis for 30/- a pair. Sorry no clogs in sight! "
1945
After the war, as mountain walking and climbing became more and more popular, the shop began to sell ex WD climbing equipment and Brigham's boots with their special nailing patterns became very sought after.
1955
As more and more British climbers began to visit the Alps, the Brighams too began to visit the alpine valleys to buy the latest mountaineering
equipment and exotic French climbing hardware and Italian boots began to appear on the shelves of Brighams Manchester shop. Sadly Frederick
Brigham died before the end of the fifties and the business was taken over by eldest son Bob, soon to be joined by younger brother Ellis.
1960
A milestone year in Brigham's history with the opening of the Manchester city centre shop in Cathedral Street and the publication of the first
F Ellis Brigham customer catalogue. This catalogue featured clothing, footwear and equipment for mountaineering, rock climbing, camping
and skiing which was beginning to gain popularity.
1970's
Four Brighams shops across the country with a thriving outdoor and
mountaineering business and a growing interest in skiing. At this
time Brighams were in a unique position whereby all technical developments
in mountain and outdoor sports equipment were to be seen first in
Brighams shops and catalogues: the first lightweight rock shoes,
the first modern nylon climbing rope, the first plastic ski boots
and the first fibreglass and metal skis.
(MOAC Chockstones pictured right » )
Early 1980's
Eight Brighams shops throughout the country. Outdoor and mountain sports
are hugely popular and skiing is positively booming. Clothing and equipment
shows incredible technical development. Outdoor clothing companies
become more sophisticated with brands such as Berghaus and North Face
establishing a strong market presence and fabrics such as Gore-Tex
and fleece setting industry standards. Key year is 1986 when the first
of Ellis Brigham's White Book winter sports consumer catalogues was
published setting a standard previously unseen in the outdoor retail
marketplace. The first snowboards to be sold in the UK appeared in
Ellis Brigham shops and catalogues at this time.
1990's
Eleven Ellis Brigham Mountain Sports shops throughout the country. Outdoor
and wintersports clothing hugely popular both as functional outdoor
lifestyle garments and as cutting edge youth fashion. Snowboarding
begins to gain momentum and Ellis Brigham establish The Snowboard Asylum
dedicated shop in shop concept areas. The first Snowboard Asylum catalogue
appears and again sets the industry standard. The Ellis Brigham spring/summer
outdoor catalogue is relaunched as The Green Book. Using the established
editorial style of The White Book, The Green Book in turn sets the
standard for outdoor retail publications. And then came the the internet, when in 1996 www.ellis-brigham.com was launched. Initially with just basic contact and shop information it quickly lead to a full e-commerce website - with crazy things such as this ;-)
Approaching 2000
We are a nationwide outdoor retailer, owned and staffed by active outdoor
sports enthusiasts and we publish the three leading outdoor and wintersports
consumer catalogues. We have twelve shops throughout the country; seven
city centre shops in London, Bristol, Manchester, Chester and Liverpool;
shops at The SnowDome in Tamworth and at Rossendale ski slope and three
destination shops at leading mountain areas in Aviemore and Fort William
in Scotland and Capel Curig in Snowdonia. Spring 2000 sees our massive
8,500 ft2 Milton Keynes open at the exciting new X-Scape indoor real
snow wintersports centre.
2000+
Fully secure online shop implemented, 13 stores nationwide, Milton Keynes
Megastore opened successfully in Summer 2000 and entered into .com
affiliations with "The First Resort" and "Where Will
We Go?".
Winter 2001/2002
Winter 2001/2002 is a period of consolidation for Ellis Brigham and The
Snowboard Asylum, following the huge success of our Milton Keynes XScape
opening last winter, we are putting some effort into bringing our smaller
established stores up to speed. Both Chester and Bristol have doubled
their ground floor space with expansion into adjacent premises - this
will give these stores more space to show a powerful offering across
our Ski, Snowboard and Outdoor products all year round. Liverpool has
now had its refit complete, resulting in a light, modern shopping environment
in the modern style and in Manchester, we have switched things around
a little, consolidating ski hardware into our Castlefield store where
we now have one of the uk's biggest ski hardware departments, plus
junior ski clothing now has a large area in this roomy store.
Our Manchester Deansgate store now concentrates on snowboard, ski and outdoor apparel and accessories giving things a more youthful spin. High on our agenda this winter is the promotion of our Slopeside UK Demo Stores in Milton Keynes XScape, Tamworth SnowDome, Aviemore and Fort William. These stores (particularly the Milton Keynes and Tamworth branches) have unique try before you buy facilities where all of the latest skis and snowboards can be tested prior to purchase - try as many pairs as you want and make the most of this opportunity, no other UK retailer can offer this service.
Ellis Brigham's Slopeside UK Demo Stores mean that you can now buy ski and snowboard hardware with confidence in the UK where our convenient demo facilities and well trained English speaking staff are located close to the major UK motorway network. Our Scottish resort stores in Aviemore and Fort William are hands-on with their local mountain environment and each shop has huge rental fleets plus selected demo product. They also have key locals' knowledge of on-the-hill conditions, avalanche danger and secret spots (bring a bottle of scotch and bribe the info out of them!).
New for this winter, Aviemore will house a Burton Snowboards Apollo Demo House, only the second in the UK following on from the facility set up last winter at our Milton Keynes store. Our Scottish stores also house our Telemark and Backcountry centres where the latest equipment and great specialist knowledge can be found. The next few years are very exciting for Ellis Brigham as we piggy back on the XScape SnoZone concept expansion into Castleford, south of Leeds on the M62 and Braehead in Scotland. Our shops at these developments will be massive and each will of course feature a Slopeside UK Demo Store - bringing this unique facility to even more UK snowsports enthusiasts. Further indoor snow developments are tantalisingly close at Beckton in London .... but more about this soon!
Winter 2002/2003
So much happening we can't update this page! Main news is the opening
of our Tower House store in Covent Garden, London. More about this on
our news page...
Spring 2003/Winter 2004
The North Face Retail Store opens May 2003 in Covent Garden. Our two Castleford
stores open at the new Xscape near Leeds including The Toyota Ice Walls
operated by Vertical Chill. Relationships built with Aim Series, Vail
Resorts, Scope & Dogtag to name but a few.
Spring 2005
Our second store opens in Milton Keynes Xscape. Concentrating on
Mountaineering, Climbing & Adventure Travel - the shop is situated
next to the indoor climbing wall. Vertical
Chill now operates both indoor climbing walls at the Milton Keynes
& Castleford Xscapes.
Winter 05/06
EB Freeski Team sign up several new skiers and release the DVD Sketch.
Spring/Summer 2006
Xscape Braehead / Glasgow opens - and we have two shops there!
Winter 06/07 - WHITE BOOK "20"
Twenty years of our White Book - click here for some blasts from the past!
Spring / Summer 2008 - 75 Years!
1933 - 2008 celebrations
Winter 2008/2009
London Westfield opens!!!
