SHEFFORDS – A BRIEF HISTORY.
The firm was established in 1887 by Thomas Wright who opened his office at Kent House Station, Beckenham at a time when the Victorians were building large houses on the nearby Cator Estate, and smaller terraced houses were being erected for weekly tenants. His monogram remains on the front of the rather picturesque building. When he died about the time of the Great War his executors sold the business to Hugh F Thorburn, a Chartered Surveyor who, during the building boom of the 20’s and 30’s, expanded the operation by opening offices in Bromley, West Wickham, Hayes and Sevenoaks. Most of these were in the approaches to railway stations when potential buyers arrived by train.
By the late 30’s Hugh Thorburn had appointed managers and three of them were named Shefford, Sedgwick and Dacombe. These gentlemen bought the business from Thorburn and later took in two others, Howard King at Hayes and Cecil Platts at Sevenoaks who ran the Sevenoaks branch right up to his retirement in 1977. The sevenoaks office was moved up from the station in 1976 to 13 London Road. Mr Platts, like several of his partners, was a Chartered Surveyor and his speciality was structural surveys (now called a Building Survey).
As the “old” partners retired in the late 1970’s so new ones rose to take their place. Martin Ingall, who had been at the Sevenoaks office since 1968, then formed a new partnership with Jeremy Treliving in 1981, selling off the Beckenham office and retaining the branch at Hayes.
When Martin Ingall retired in 2002, Jeremy continued in Sevenoaks as a sole practitioner with James Martin and David Kingston providing specialist Building and Commercial surveying expertise. Ed Treliving joined his father in 2015 and re-trained as a Chartered Surveyor and a limited company was formed. In 2017 Patrick Henshaw joined the ranks as the fifth surveyor and the firm moved to larger offices at London House, 77 High Street in December 2017.
