Names: Tracy and Tony Butler

Business name: Seventh Heaven, Chirk Road, Chirk Bank

Opening hours: Monday to Saturday from 9am until 5.30pm

When did you open your business and why?

The business was started by my parents almost 50 years ago. It started in London but moved up to Chirk in 1976, but sadly the recession then hit us in 2008.

My wife and I started things up again in 2009 and we’re still here now.

The premises here is a converted water mill which was in the family after my parents had the business, and it was a derelict building which was turned into a workshop.

My parents had a shop in London selling antique beds at the time, they started at a market stall in 1971, and then moved into the shop.

They used to use Chirk mill as their workshop and then drive the vans with the beds in down to London for about three or four years before they moved everything up here.

Why in this location?

The business moved here and I have worked here since 1994.

It’s a place I enjoy working, it’s a nice part of the world.

Tell us about your business

We SELL antique beds, as well as beds which we buy and renovate.

We also have all the mattresses, beds and bed linen and so on, but we also sell normal beds as well.

We’re mattress specialists as well so we have a wide range of those.

People don’t realise that we actually sell to places all over the world.

We sell around the country on the internet across the UK, but we also sell to the US quite a bit and as far as Australia really.

Although we’re based in Chirk, we are a local business but we also have a big outreach.

Aside from beds, at the start of the pandemic, my wife Tracy started making face visors as there was a shortage of PPE for NHS staff, care home workers and other places.

We also used our workshops to make face masks and coverings at the start.

We just wanted to use our resources to help out as best as we could.

We do quite a nice Christmas lights show down here each year, and this year my wife is going the extra mile because of the pandemic.

We have asked for donations and people have kindly given to us to make sure we can do quite a nice show for the children and the rest of the community this year.

What is your proudest moment?

We WON the Family Business of the Year in Wales award at the Family Business of the Year Awards in 2016.

That was a very proud moment as they go through a lot of criteria to determine the winners.

On top of that, I’m really proud we have been able to almost reach 50 years, that’s a long time in business.

Any strange requests?

Not really – but we did have a medium visit the shop once many many years ago, who believed one of the beds we had brought to the shop was haunted – but that wasn’t the case.