Lingey Close, Dalston · since 1972

One family. One site. 54 years.

We have never moved. That sounds like a small thing and it is the most useful fact on this website: the firm that made your kitchen can still be found, still has the drawing, and can still make you one door that matches the other nineteen.

Come and meet us 01228 710085

A joiner working an oak rail on the boring machine in the Thwaite Holme workshop at Dalston — Our workshop at Dalston. Photograph by Jonathan Becker.

The story

It started with a pine table.

Robert Postlethwaite, who everybody called Bob, started this firm in 1972 in a small workshop at Lingey Close in Dalston, making pine tables, chairs and Welsh dressers. He had a straightforward idea about it, which was to make things that lasted a long time.

His sons joined him and the work moved from single pieces to fitted cabinet furniture, mostly kitchens. 54 years on there is a team of skilled craftsmen here, a mixture of traditional machinery that has been in daily use for decades and modern machines beside it, and a 1,000m² workshop built on the same ground Bob started on.

Some of our men have been with us for twenty years and more. They are the backbone of the company, and they train the apprentices, because the plan has always been for somebody to still be doing this afterwards.

Design is Ian. Fitting is Chris and Ryan. You will meet all three.

1972 to 2026

54 years, in order.

1972Robert Postlethwaite starts the firmPine tables, chairs and Welsh dressers, in a small workshop at Lingey Close, Dalston.

ThenHis sons join himThe work moves from single pieces to fitted cabinet furniture, mostly kitchens.

2017The earliest photograph we holdA charcoal painted kitchen with a pale island, shot on 25 July 2017.

2019The workshop is photographedA joiner working an oak rail on the boring machine, February 2019. It is on this page.

2022Fifty years on the same siteA team of skilled craftsmen, traditional and modern machinery side by side, and a new 1,000m² workshop built on the founding ground.

2023A kitchen at Dornock, over the borderCurved island with the breakfast table built into the end of it, and the utility room alongside.

2025Back to the same house at DornockA fitted dressing room, two years after the kitchen. People do not ask you back if the first job went wrong.

202654 years, second generationSame address. Same family. Still making the furniture we fit.

THE FIRMThwaite Holme · Lingey Close · Dalston

Founded: 1972, by Robert Postlethwaite
Started making: Pine tables, chairs and Welsh dressers
Now: Kitchens, bedrooms and fitted furniture, made to measure
Generation: Second. Family run
Site: Lingey Close, Dalston. Never moved
Workshop: 1,000m², purpose built, on the founding site
Waste: All recycled

Made at: Dalston
Fitted by: Our own men
Trading since: 1972
Drawings kept: Always

Where we work

Cumbria, Southwest Scotland, and the country between them.

Carlisle and north Cumbria is most of it, the Eden Valley and the Lakes a good deal more, and Dumfriesshire is not an occasional trip: there is a kitchen at Dornock from 2023 and a dressing room in the same house from 2025.

See the work

Talk to the workshop

Come and meet us.

01228 710085

Book a showroom visitor come in. No appointment needed to look round.

Lingey Close, Dalston, Carlisle, Cumbria, CA5 7LB. Parking on site.

Monday to Thursday: 8am – 5pm
Friday: 8am – 3.30pm
Saturday: 8am – 12pm
Sunday: Closed