Herring Shoes celebrate 50 years of business - 1966 to 2016

Herring has been quietly bringing the traditional footwear industry into the 21st century since launching an online service in 2000, although we have been making and selling shoes since we opened in 1966. Since then, our business has changed from a bricks and mortar chain of 5 shops in the Cotswolds to a mainly online business selling to over 115 countries. At the core of the company’s success is passion for shoes and customer service which has developed within this family business over 50 years of trading.

The Herring name is certainly well know by the best manufacturers in Northamptonshire, as they have been making shoes for us for five decades, but it is not a name that immediately springs to mind when walking down your local high-street. This is because we specialise in handmade British welted footwear. Not many shops these days cater for this part of a gentleman’s wardrobe. Cheaper and lower-quality mass-produced products have reduced the choice of men's footwear and many traditional gentleman’s outfitters have disappeared, meaning our shoes are mostly available through this website.

When we decided to make shoes with our name in, provenance and craftsmanship was of the utmost importance. Looking through the many styles we offer, you will notice that the Herring brand is rooted in British manufacturing and we are very proud of that fact. It’s not only the majority of shoes that are made in the UK but also our ranges of trousers, scarves, jumpers, belts and ties. Take a look at our videos to see what we mean about provenance being central to our business.

Having the Herring brand gives us freedom that other manufacturers and retailers do not have. We create styles that larger chains would not see as commercial and smaller shops could not afford to make. This has allowed Adrian Herring to create designs that fill those gaps with some superb styles like Fencote which is our second best selling shoe. Other popular examples are the leather and tweed combinations called Dartmoor and Exmoor. These shoes are named after the moors near our Devon home and the unique Herring tweed comes from the last surviving Mill in the South West of England.

But the Herring brand isn’t all about colour and cutting edge styles. The most popular shoe of all is the black Knightsbridge oxford toe cap, familiar in professional environments as a staple work shoe. It is classic, elegant and timeless, which are great benefits for a shoe you might be wearing for many years. Overall classic styles dominate our collections, whether thick soled country boots, patent dress shoes or lightweight loafers. This strong element of traditional design, alongside the more exotic combinations, is what makes our Herring product range such a treasure trove for the discerning buyer.

Our status as a great shoe maker has also been helped by our Herring Ambassadors. We feature real wearers of our shoes whose passions reflect our passion for shoes, regardless of their public profile. We are very grateful to all of our ambassadors for the time they give us to take photos, for wearing our shoes and for talking about them to anyone who is interested. They are a diverse collection of interesting, generous and polite people, united by a love of our shoes.

When Herring shoes started in 1966, Sir Geoff Hurst was about to score a hat-trick to help England win the football world cup and became a legend of the game. 50 years later we are honoured to count Sir Geoff as one of our Herring ambassadors and a keen wearer our shoes. We look forward to seeing what celebrations may be in store for the 50th anniversary of that famous win later in the year.

We appreciate the trust that so many customers have placed in our Herring brand. It is why we spend so much time and energy making sure the details are correct, whether it is ensuring our delivery service is as good as it can be or encouraging our Customer Service team to wear the products we sell so they can give knowledgeable, first-hand advice.

We want your experience of buying from Herring to be of the highest quality possible and that anything with our name on it should be genuinely special. This dual focus on products and service is the same as that of Richard Herring, the father of our Managing Director Adrian Herring, when he first opened his shop all those years ago. It has enabled us to build a business that now stocks around 40,000 pairs of shoes for same day despatch, sells to 115 countries and supports British manufacturing wherever possible.

Our values are important to us and our customers. We will continue to uphold them as we look forward to an exciting future.