About us
We're an independent and conscious business
Good design and sustainability is our passion and we love what we do
Based in the Stroud Valleys, we’re proud of being an independent and conscious business. A passion for good design and sustainability is at our heart. With our lovely colours, natural beauty of wood and unusual recycled plastics, we create beautiful, functional and sustainable products for the home. We work to support the circular economy and for a low carbon footprint. Our unique range is designed and made by us completely in the UK and we are the sole supplier.
Our story
Woodmancote Retro was started by us, Catherine and Andy Cunningham as a family business in 2015. Andy is an Arboriculturist and Catherine, director of Woodmancote Retro had previously worked in marketing. Together we were collecting vintage homewares and furniture as we slowly renovated our first home, a stone weaver’s cottage in Gloucestershire, which prompted quite a few ideas. Our inspiration for deciding to start a small business was driven by two passions. Our love of good design, especially mid century furniture and a real concern about sustainability. We were increasingly appalled at seeing so much waste and obsolescence, particularly related with products for the home. The amount going to landfill truly shocked us. If we could save functional, well designed pieces to repair and sell on to others who shared our passions, we could do two things - share the joy of those pieces and contribute to the circular economy for the betterment of society.
We started off buying, or saving, pieces we loved and selling them to like-minded souls. Our growing reputation led to specialising in old school furniture as schools closed and refurbished. In particular, we upcycled the classic Robin Day designed science lab stools, manufactured by Hille. Hille being the furniture company that produced iconic school and office furniture in Britain during the 50’s and 60’s and is still operating today.
We refurbished the steel frames in our favourite colours and replaced the broken plastic seat tops with reclaimed wood from science labs. Our stools proved popular, so meeting demand and repurposing the old plastic seats led us to working directly with Hille. They supplied us with their steel stool frames and so we could added our reclaimed wood seats. They also have their own facility to recycle and remould the plastic into new seats to meet sustainability.
As time moved forward, we decided we wanted to design and make our own unique furniture. It was essential that we adhered to our principles of design, sustainability and the circular economy. We wanted a design led and conscious business, creating well made, functional products that would stand the test of time. So in 2018 Woodmancote Retro as it is now was born and we launched our own tubular steel furniture, rooted in mid century design. It was very exciting to have the whole process completely down to us and we set up partnerships with great fabricators who worked to the same principles. With Andy still hand-crafting wooden tops and tabletops, our furniture was ethically made, of the quality we wanted and could either be repaired or the materials recycled.
We wanted to take another step in both originality of design and sustainability, so at Clerkenwell Design Week in 2019 we launched our recycled plastic seats with great success. We had now established a core range of furniture with some limited-edition pieces available alongside. Since then we have sold our furniture in our wonderful colours and mixture of tops to homes all across the UK and abroad. We’ve also built a strong portfolio of commercial clients including all sizes of hospitality venues, offices and visitor spaces. We offer additional products and bespoke options to meet requirements for commercial projects.
In May 2026 we took another big step, launching our homewares collection in line with our principles. We’re looking forward to where we go from here with our wonderful like minded partners, supporters and customers. We are immensely grateful to everyone who has followed us, worked with us and proudly purchased from us – you are our Woodmancote Retro community.
Our principles
Our core principles at Woodmancote Retro are that we adhere to good design and sustainability practices as a conscious, independent business. We want to share what we believe in and it means a great deal to us that so many of our customers come to us not just because they like what they see, but because our principles and business ethics mean something too.
We are passionate about good quality mid century design and furniture and very inspired by those that have gone before us. In particular, we are strongly influenced by the architect and designer Dieter Rams, who said “Design can and must maintain its contribution towards protecting and sustaining the environment." We follow his 10 principles, that good design is:
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Innovative
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Makes a product useful
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Aesthetic
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Makes a product understandable
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Unobtrusive
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Honest
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Long-lasting
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Thorough down to the last detail
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Environmentally friendly
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As little design as possible
We are equally passionate about contributing effectively to the circular economy in line with our sustainability principles. We see this as essential and the way of the future. This affects how we design, manufacture, work with partners and sell. The three circular economy core principles are; eliminate waste and pollution, circulate products and materials, and regenerate nature. We have always aimed to meet our beliefs in the best ways we can. Our materials are recycled, reclaimed, sustainable and responsibly sourced.
Our products
Woodmancote Retro products are exclusively designed and made by us in the UK, adhering to our principles of good design and sustainability. We are so proud of what we do and those who have helped us along the way. So we have named our pieces after people that mean something to us – friends, family and business partners who are all part of our success.
Functional and durable, the materials for our furniture and homewares are responsibly sourced, recycled and sustainable and also can be recycled on again. All our furniture items can be repaired and re powder coated. Now we have also expanded into homewares, we are pleased to be working in partnership with Rock Mill in West Wales for our pure Welsh wool Welsh blankets and bags. The current owner is Donald Morgan whose great grandfather established the Rock Mill water driven woollen mill in the nineteenth century and it has been working continuously ever since. Donald also has a lovely connection to our home in the Stroud Valleys as it’s where he did his weaving apprenticeship as a young man.
Paint
We use low VOC paints, the lowest available at present, to powder coat our tubular steel, steel sheet and stainless steel.
Steel
Our steel is recycled and responsibly sourced in the UK and we partner with conscious fabricators.
Wood
We only use high quality, beautiful sustainable wood or plywood panels which are FSC compliant. For example, in our workshop we’ve made table tops from an ash tree on our property and seats from tree work by Andy, our joint owner. We also work with a well established and highly skilled circular economy sawmill. It’s part of the important charity, Woodland Heritage with sustainability and education at the forefront. Much of our wood comes from careful forestry management at private estates like Badminton in Gloucestershire, not far from us. https://www.woodlandheritage.org/
Plastics
We work with a true circular economy partner for our interesting recycled plastics. These striking and durable materials are created from all sorts of post-consumer waste, which can be further recycled on. The Woodmancote Retro designs are made up as follows:
Allsorts – recycled cosmetic bottles - our seat tops recycle between 30-40 bottles!
Marble – recycled PET chopping boards
Seagull – recycled kitchen fixtures and fittings
Seaside - plastic packaging
Tutti – recycled children’s toys and yoghurt pots
Welsh Wool
100% Welsh wool is used for our Welsh blankets and bags from Rock Mill.