About Henton and Chattell and Mowerworld
The family owned company was established in the 1930's, by Leslie Henton and Charles Chattell as a chain of three ironmongery stores in Nottingham in the areas of Beeston, West Bridgford and Lenton supplying Trusty Tractors and other ironmongery equipment to the local area. Just before the second world war, Henton and Chattell had expanded to include five stores. As a part of their ironmongery sales, Leslie and Charles were also skilled metal engineers, and began to explore the opportunity of supplying park benches to local businesses and councils up and down the United Kingdom. Owing testimony to their high standards of quality engineering, some of these park benches still exist in various counties up and down the country even to this day.
It was during the interwar period however, that Henton and Chattell's roots as a horticultural supply company were really sown. With Nottingham and Derby being key manufacturing hubs for the war effort, with companies such as Rolls Royce, the Royal Ordinance Factory and Boots operating within the local area, Nottingham and Derby were key targets for the Luftwaffe's strategic bombing campaigns designed to halt Britain's economy and war production. As a result of high civilian casualties and losses in these cities, demand for suburban housing with gardens became popular, owing to the decreased risk of living further away from the cities. With more people owning gardens than ever before, Britain's demand for lawnmowers grew exponentially. In the late 1940's as a result of this housing market boom, and recognising the opportunity of growth of the company, Charles and Leslie decided to focus the company's sales on supplying the local population with lawnmowers, correspondingly due to the increased rise in demand.
Following the end of the Second World War, in 1949 the two partners consolidated their retail premises into one store. Purchasing a house next to their existing premises in West Bridgford, this was converted into one large showroom. This was perfect timing because during the 1950's Britain's economy was booming again. With more disposable income available to households to spend on home improvements and gardening, Britain's horticultural industry saw a substantial growth in the sales of lawn mowers again. With growth to the horticultural industry, Henton and Chattell undertook yet another major structural change to the business. Proving its worth as a large scale retailer in the East Midlands, Henton and Chattell was invited by a leading lawnmower manufacturer to become a distributor, and subsequently moved into its current premises on Iremonger Road to handle the extra space required for distribution of lawn care equipment.
In the later part of the 1900’s after a short period of time of success as distributor for the first time, Henton and Chattell once again validated its eagerness to grow the business further by becoming one of the UK distributors for the engine and parts manufacturer, Briggs and Stratton. This promotion as a Briggs and Stratton distributor was no mean feat. It also marked a significant change in the growth of the business as a major player in the lawnmower distribution industry by signalling that Henton and Chattell was capable and agile to handle the extra demand required.
As Henton and Chattell grew and became a distributor for many more brands offering more choice for retailers, the company decided in 1994 to rebrand it’s retail space to its existing name, ‘Mower World’. The name Mower World has become a recognisable brand within Nottingham offering customers not only choice but also quality customer service just as it had done when the company was first established in 1931.
In 2001, Henton and Chattell decided again to make another major change to the business, by moving away from the Ransomes professional turf brand equipment to becoming a John Deere dealership. Today, the John Deere franchise is a significant proportion of the business serving a multitude of different customers across different industries from councils to golf courses, from commercial contractors to small hold farmers the John Deere brand has enabled us to reach new customers and establish lasting relationships. From a homeowner perspective, however the move away from Ransomes also enabled Mower World the opportunity to stock and retail John Deere homeowner tractors and mowers.
Moving on 13 years later, Henton and Chattell underwent another significant strategic change by establishing the brand Cobra Garden Machinery, back in 2014. This was a major development in the company’s 83 year history because for the first time since the manufacturing of park benches the company had been involved with the distribution of its own products. Those same values of quality and reliability which Leslie Henton and Charles Chattell founded Henton and Chattell still to this day run deep within the founding principles of Cobra Garden Machinery as a manufacturer of high quality and reliable products that last.
Today, Henton and Chattell continues as a family business staying true to its original core values of quality, reliability and innovation. We still operate from the same location some 70 years later, however as a company we’ve changed a lot. Employing over 80 members of staff and are the exclusive UK and Ireland distributor of Billy Goat, Cobra Garden Machinery, EGO Power Plus, and MowBot. Our dealer network boasts over 1500 dealers. Our parts business has also changed a lot too. Today we have over 100,000 parts available for customers across a range of brands and continue to serve our local customers, as we have always done so.
Opening Hours:
Showroom:
Monday to Friday: 9.00am - 5.00pm
Saturday: 9.00am - 5.00pm
Sunday: Closed.
Parts Counter:
Monday to Friday: 9.00am - 5.00pm
Saturday: 9.00am - 5.00pm
Sunday: Closed.
Service Counter
Monday to Friday: 9.00am - 5.00pm
Saturday: 9.00am - 5.00pm
Sunday: Closed.