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About us
Proud to be family-owned since 1975.
Proud to be fully family owned in the heart of Exmouth.
Albion Cobblers have been owned by our family since we started back in 1975.
We're in a time where the high street is dominated by the big high street brands who care about one thing and one thing only, money.
The difference with independent shops like ours is we care about our local community and don't have any shareholders to please which makes us put customers first and profit after.
At a glance
Back to where we started.
Bill started out in Budleigh Salterton at Norman's Supermarket - now Norman Crescent. We offered the standard key cutting, repairs and carpet cleaner hire.
The blue machine we have inside of this shop is the exact same machine that we use today, and it's still going strong. We had it imported from France and it was quite a challenge getting it here!
The photo above was taken sometime in the 1980s and originally had Bill and Jen stood at the door, but they're a little camera shy online so they have had their faces removed which is why some of the posters look a bit strange.
Heading to the 1990s now and in 1994, Tesco Superstore opened on Salterton Road and Normans began to decline in use. It eventually was turned into a Co-Op and then finally closed down. In 2006, it became a housing estate which is now Norman Crescent.
A little bit more about Normans.
Norman's was Budleigh's Bookers, it had everything you needed for the weekly shop, a bite to eat, a garden centre and of-course a place to get your keys cut and your shoes repaired.
There are very few pictures of Norman's - but this one shows the main store, with Boyne Road and Jocelyn Road to the right.
The store eventually was sold to the Co-op group in the late 90s and eventually closed in late 2001, mainly due to Tesco opening a few years prior and had struggled to compete.
Demolition began at around 2002
and the site now houses Norman Crescent.
We were sited at the left hand side of the store in a tiny little shed.
The construction of Norman Crescent.
Satellite imagery from 2003 via Google Earth.
Let's go back a little further.
Before Norman's was the Budleigh Salterton railway goods site, and a little further down the road was Budleigh Salterton Train Station.
The railway was closed in 1967 and from then and through to the late 70s the tracks were dismantled and the viaduct passing through Exmouth town that carried the tracks to Budleigh was demolished.
Buildings that now stand on the former railway line include Norman Crescent, Greenway Lane retirement flats, Queens Road, Dukes Road, Shortwood Close and Deepways.
From Deepways, the railway continued across the B3178, which a brick wall still remains from a bridge that carried it across, onto what is now the cycle track leading to Exmouth.
The former railway line from above.
Satellite imagery from 1945 via Google Earth.
The construction of Norman Crescent.
Satellite imagery from 2003 via Google Earth.
We're off to Exmouth now.
After Norman's had closed it's doors for good in 2001, we moved to a new store in Albion Street, Exmouth and re-named to Albion Shoe Repairs, Key Cutting & Carpet Cleaner Hire.
We stayed there for 19 years and had become one of the go to places for key cutting and shoe repairs.
In 2016 the business was handed down a generation in the family and had introduced a new service - engraving.
We quickly became a local supplier of engraved goods for local businesses, groups, schools and charities and kept the business thriving when shoe repairs declined as people tend to now buy new pairs instead of repairing them.
Moving to our new, and present home.
So it's 2020 and the entire country has come to a standstill due to the Coronavirus. We closed our doors and began selling our services online through eBay. This proved a huge success and a few months later we re-opened our doors to provide essential services, namely key cutting.
Once the first lockdown had ended, we continued our online store and had then realised we had outgrown the little shop in Albion Street and had plans to re-locate to the former Thomas Cook store which had gone into administration a year earlier.
At the end of 2020, we had successfully moved to our new store, which was just 50 yards away from Albion Street so it was easy for people to still find us.
Since then we had the chance to begin selling more gifts and homeware as well as expand our engraving services by introducing new machines. We also continued to sell our engraved items online, expanding our expertise country wide.
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