MAPLE & Co -- A VICTORIAN "IKEA" ?

The similarity between Maple and Co and IKEA,  is in the world coverage and popularity but Maple and Co had their own manufacturing facility in one place in London. And it was enormous. Ikea has no production place of their own and they move their production to the factory anywhere in the world where they can do it the cheapest. That is how they can keep such low prices.
Picture from here.

"With a warehouse that was one of the “sites of London”, Maple and Co was once the largest furniture retailer and manufacturer in the world, attracting visitors from near and far. The company was most prolific in the late Victorian and Edwardian era, specialising in fine quality Arts and Crafts Furniture, designed and produced in their own workshops. However, they continued producing fine quality furniture up until the 1980s.

Maple and Co was established by John Maples shopkeeper from Horley, Surrey, who later opened a furniture shop in Tottenham Court Road. However it was his son, John Blundell Maple who made Maples and Co a success. With exceptional business skills, John B. Maple took over the company while still a young man. By the 1880s they were the largest furniture store in the world, exported their fine furniture to every continent.

Maples manufactured their luxury furniture entirely in-house, at a huge modern complex. A timber importer and furniture exporter, they landed prestigious contracts furnishing fine houses, hotels, embassies and palaces in Europe; among them Tsar Nicholas’s Winter Palace and the Hofburg Imperial Palace in Vienna . With his own empire established, John Blundell Maple achieved further fame in politics and horseracing – some lines, such as the Atherstoke antique cabinet having racing connections in the titles." (The text above from here.)

Funny how one never sees these anymore. Did you have to duck to get in or what?

"Inexpensive Artistic Tableware"

One can get an old Maple & Co  calalogue on a disc here.