In the 1960’s Oakenshaw Grange was a boarding & quarantine kennels, the owner then discovered this wonderful material which he thought would be excellent for dog bedding thus Veterinary Bedding was born and he sold it from Oakenshaw Grange via trade journals and directly from site. He then went on to sell disinfectants and cleaners and gradually increased his range of stock.  Oakenshaw Grange changed hands in the late 80’s and the new owners continued to build up it’s reputation as a Mail-Order Company and locally as a Retail Shop and Trade Warehouse. It was in the 90’s that the present owners returning from abroad and seeking a Quarantine Kennels for their dog became familiar with Oakenshaw Grange. The dog was so impressed that in Jan 1995 they bought the business!

Oakenshaw Kennels, Cattery and Shop is still thriving and very busy throughout the year.

The new owners continued to develop the Trade and Mail Order / Tele-Sales side of the business and increasing the range of products. One of the companies they dealt with was Allbrooks Grooming Products Ltd. Allbrooks manufactured dryers, and imported scissors and other grooming equipment.

The owners of Oakenshaw  Grange had great confidence in the Allbrooks Tornado range of dryers and blasters so when Allbrooks Grooming Products Ltd went into voluntary liquidation they bought the assets. Moved them to Yorkshire along with some key personnel and in January 1999 the merged company of Oakenshaw & Allbrooks (or O&A as it is more commonly known now) was formed.

The manufacture of the Tornado Dryers continues under the Allbrooks Tornado Marquee at Oakenshaw Grange and we are proud to have kept the name and the product alive.  

The bulk of the business is trade sales with a smaller proportion of retail sales through our web page, (http://www.oakenshaw.com) and tele-sales. Some 70% of sales derive from In-house manufacture, notably the Allbrooks Tornado™ dryers & blasters and the O&A range of grooming tables. We also distribute Oster™ clippers and dryers and Andis™ clippers and many other well known brands of grooming equipment and materials from Europe and the States.  Our scissor range is made in Germany.

Most of our export sales are to our distributors. As we had some gaps in our distributor network we decided that in the year 2000 we would have our own stand at the 2 yearly International Trade Fair,  held one year in Nuremberg and the other year in the States.  The year 2000 Trade Fair was in Nuremberg and O&A had a stand in British Manufacturer Section with the help of the Department Of Trade and Industry.

Certainly for us the trade fair was very successful, indeed we then had the problem of adjusting to the increased demand. In one sense this was surprising as our market is very price sensitive and our products  are quite expensive compared to those of our competitors, even more so with the strong pound. Cheaper dryers are manufactured in countries such as Italy as well as competing with Imports from the USA. Moreover we have a pan-European price regardless of the exchange rate.

However, we are selling on our reputation for quality and there is a strong demand from the end user for our range which encourages our distributors to stay faithful to the brand.

The number of our export customers is increasing year on year and the shopping cart facility on our web page is more and more popular and with knowledgeable staff manning our phone lines backed up by a bespoke software package handling customer orders and stock control our customers get an efficient and friendly service.