The Hambledon always wanted to be a shop which sold things the owners loved, in a space they loved, to customers they would grow to love.
It’s a sentimental and very honourable kind of aspiration borne out of a genuine belief in the worth of shops and shopping and shopgirls (and boys).
They opened in September 1999 in a beautiful double fronted Georgian building in Winchester’s Cathedral Square, the scale of which was somewhat daunting. The past decade and a bit has seen their team refining and developing what they want The Hambledon to be: a really good shop by any measure, uncompromising in its choices, entertaining in its presentation and always super-friendly in its approach. Yay!
They have extended womenswear into three rooms on the first floor with enough space for key British labels to rub shoulders with US and European brands without getting in a tangle. The Norman basement (once a warren of spooky stockrooms) is now a happy home for a fully fledged menswear offer.
Homeware and all its associated friends live on the ground floor.
The first mezzanine level is a brand new, and indeed quite a grown up bath and beauty department. The Tudor rooms at the rear of the building are now a stationery and book department and a project space to house temporary exhibitions and collaborations.
Old fashioned shop keeping is a brilliant, hugely varied and funny business.
And we wouldn’t want them to do anything else.
