High street family business in Ashford still going strong after 80 years
Soundcraft Hi-Fi, a family-owned business in Ashford, celebrates 80 years of operation after evolving from a photography shop to a high-end audio retailer. The business has successfully navigated technological shifts from film cameras to modern digital and analog sound equipment.
Why it matters
Illustrates the resilience of small, multi-generational family businesses in the face of changing consumer habits and technology.
Surrounded by turntables, amplifiers and speakers, Geoff Mathews is still behind the counter of the family shop he first joined as a young man.
Now 74, he works alongside his sons Sam, 45, and Daniel, 48 – the third generation of a business that has survived huge changes in technology, shopping habits and the high street itself.
But Soundcraft Hi-Fi’s story began 80 years ago and more than 10 miles away, when Geoff’s father Victor opened a very different kind of shop in Hythe.
The family business dates back to 1946, when Victor, who had served as a photographer during the Second World War, launched Photocraft in Hythe High Street.
Selling cameras, lenses, telescopes and binoculars, it moved to Ashford in 1960, with Geoff joining his father behind the counter 12 years later.
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