Premium black timber frontage for Hartley Glo, Hartley Wintney.

The brief.

Hartley Glo are launching a new premium retail unit on the Hartley Wintney high street — a Hampshire village known for its independent shops, antique dealers and Georgian frontages. The premises they had taken on was a tired-looking brick-and-glass unit on a corner site, with peeling paintwork, posters in the windows and 'Shop & Office to Let' signs still up.

The brief was to deliver a frontage that did three things at once. It needed to look unmistakably premium — comparable to the best independent retailers further along the High Street. It needed to honour the character of a Hartley Wintney conservation context, where heavy plate-glass commercial fronts would jar with the surrounding architecture. And it needed to give the brand a distinctive, photographable identity from the moment customers first walked past.

The solution.

We specified a full hardwood timber frontage in deep satin black, with traditional pilasters, panelled stallrisers and large display windows running floor-to-fascia. The window configuration is a four-panel layout with a recessed entrance — a classic late-Victorian shopfront proportion, modernised in scale and finish.

Above the windows we fitted an ornate dentil cornice with carved acanthus leaf detailing — a heavy three-dimensional moulding that runs the full width of the unit. This is the architectural feature that lifts the project from 'painted black shopfront' to something genuinely high-end. The detail is hand-finished in matching black satin so the moulding reads as a sculptural element rather than a contrasting trim.

Glazing throughout is toughened safety glass to BS EN 12150, set into traditional timber rebates with concealed glazing tape and bedding. The transom over the entrance door takes a fixed glazed panel, and the door itself is a flush-glazed timber unit with a bespoke matt-black tubular handle running roughly half the door height — a small detail but distinctive against the rest of the high street.

For signage we worked with the client to specify dimensional flat-cut gold-finish lettering — a hand-drawn script reading 'HartleyGlo' with a matching underline flourish. The lettering is mounted directly to the fascia with concealed studs, sitting proud of the surface to catch and reflect the light. In direct sun the lettering reads almost cream; under street lighting it warms to a rich gold.

The outcome.

The completed frontage transforms the unit from a hard-to-let brick corner into one of the most photographable shopfronts on the High Street. The deep black with gold lettering creates strong contrast against the surrounding red brick, while the dentil cornice and traditional proportions keep the design sympathetic to the Hartley Wintney conservation context.