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The Factory Shop Guide series was started in 1985 by Gill Cutress and Rolf Stricker - who described themselves as 'walking rejects' due to the sheer number of clothes, home furnishings and garden items bought from Factory Shops - with the first national book being published in 1993.

To date 600,000 regional and national guides have been sold with the new one being the 75th in the series.

After accidentally wandering into a Factory Shop in Derbyshire Gill Cutress was amazed at the bargains on offer. What started as a tentative pastime soon took over their lives and after becoming redundant spawned the proposal of writing a guide to these 'secrets'. In 1985 Gill started researching information on Factory Shops in the Nottingham area with the aim of producing a local Factory Shop Guide book. It was an extremely original idea that involved personally visiting each entry to ensure that all the details were accurate and directions easy to follow. A small booklet was published in modest quantities that immediately sold out everywhere it went on sale. After numerous reprints an idea began to form that perhaps this popularity would extend to other areas of the country and 'The Official Great British Factory Shop Guide' was born.

After 12 years and1/4 million miles of travelling Gill and Rolf decided to take a well earned break passing 'The Official Great British Factory Shop Guide' onto Anthony Peters Manufacturing Company Ltd. in 2004 to carry on with helping shoppers find amazing bargains.

 

 

Dear Friends and Fellow Factory Shoppers,

Welcome to the latest edition of The Factory Shop Guide. We are greatly looking forward to using this new book - with its totally updated information - which is now produced by Anthony Peters, a small family manufacturing company with a unique and colourful Factory Shop in Melton Mowbray.

Some of you will remember us from our first small book for Nottingham (a collector's item by now, maybe?) in 1985. Others will have caught up with us over subsequent years as we extended our researches and discovered ever more of these wonderful value shops. After 74 volumes, covering the entire UK and also northern France, we needed a break: a break from travelling thousands of miles each year, and a break in which we could organise our many excellent purchases. Since our last book we have moved house - and we believe we must have the finest range of factory shop purchases in any home in the UK!

Curtaining from Somerset and Suffolk, carpets from Kidderminster, bathroom fittings from Bristol, ceramic planters from Stoke, flower pots from Scotland, cutlery from Litchfield and Sheffield, tableware from Hanley, cookware from Birmingham, furniture from Yorkshire, garden chairs from Kent. And many other items too numerous to mention. We genuinely do count the amount of money we have saved (rather than the huge amount we have had to spend to furnish our new home).

As ever we wish you successful and worthwhile shopping, with lots of those unexpected bargains which prove totally irresistible. We wish Anthony Peters fun and success in continuing this series of shopping guides. We know you will give them the same stunning support which you showed us over nearly 20 years.

Gill Cutress and Rolf Stricker