Doughtys Brothers Ltd., Hereford – by Eileen

I was lucky enough to be staying in Hereford and a friend said “you must visit Doughtys” – so I did.

With the postcode, it wasn’t too hard to find, it is on the edge of a small industrial estate and does have a limited amount of car parking at the front. Do remember though, that this is a warehouse, so not pretty windows at the front.

To say I was overawed when I went inside is correct, is this because we have been deprived of actual fabric shopping in person so much over the last eighteen months? This probably had a lot to do with it.

The showroom is laid out over two floors, the ground floor is patchwork fabrics and haberdashery and upstairs is dress fabrics (and more), I did not even make it upstairs.

On the ground floor is a vast selection of fabrics, including some precut bundles and fat quarters. They have in stock a good selection of current fabrics, including “novelty” and Christmas and had just received a delivery, there were bolts of new fabric everywhere. If you are looking for batiks and are in the area, the range is quite amazing. I would think the largest selection is (what I would class as) the “end of lines”, mostly priced at £7 or £8 per metre. These are always such a good purchase for backing quilts and I was also looking for fabrics to use to make charity quilts.

I ended up with a nice selection of one and two metre lengths and the “little piece of plastic” was put to use again!

The shelves behind the cutting area were fully laden with pre packed bundles – details of which were going on the website that day. I purchased some of these bundles during lockdown as I know others from Shirley Quilters did as well.

Doughtys Roadshows are back – to see full details, visit their website