Brian Owen – pictured with his daughter and staff member Sam –has run Better Hearth since 1976

By ALANA BRESLIN

THE owner of a family-run fireplace and mantles shop said that “time flies” as he marked its 50th anniversary.

Brian Owen has run the The Better Hearth in Holloway Road since 1976 and the shop’s story is full of colourful customers and unexpected visitors. Famous faces to buy there include the former prime minister Boris Johnson and actors such as Theo James.

Asked about the milestone, Mr Owen summed it up in two words: “Tempus fugit”– time flies in Latin.

Mr Owen has spent much of his working life around fireplaces having started his career as a heating engineer and worked as a North Thames Gas fitter.

Initially based in Blackstock Road, his family eventually took a leap of faith and bought the building in Holloway Road.

Back then, the fireplace trade was a far more hands-on affair, with the business dealing in everything from restoring intricate Victorian mantels to bringing old, forgotten fireplaces back to life. Behind the showroom a small team of skilled workers kept things moving.

Mr Owen said: “We’d have runners coming in. They’d get old fireplaces and downstairs in the basement we had a stonemason, a metal worker and a labourer. They’d come in and go downstairs, we’d do them up, put them here, sell them and the circle went on.”

He added: “We’ve had many famous people purchase from us.

“We’ve had criminals as well – the best and the worst of people.”

“There was a guy who got shot outside of a club in Hertfordshire some years ago, he bought a fireplace or two here,” Mr Owen said. “One day these two suited and booted men came in. They were policemen, they said ‘your phone number appears on his devices’. They sat down they asked me if I socialised with him. I said: ‘Socialise for me is to go out on a Saturday and have a couple of beers. Of course I didn’t’.”

After establishing the only connection to be one or two fireplaces, the officers got what they needed and left, Mr Owen said.

Through all the comings and goings, however, Mr Owen says one thing has remained unchanged: the principles on which the business was built. He said: “We are a very viable business and we do things properly.”

So what next?

“Just plod on,” Mr Owens said.

The business now does modern electric stoves as well as antique restorations – and with Mr Owen’s daughter Amanda taking to lead for the next generation, there’s no danger of this family business letting its fire go out just yet.