Interview with Andrew Healey from Sterlingham Company

Recently, we spoke with Mr. Andrew Healey, who is the managing director at  Sterlingham.  Sterlingham is known for their hand crafted towel warmers.  He was kind enough to answer a few questions for onlytowelwarmers.com.  

OTW: Share with us the history of Sterlingham.

2016 will see Kelvin Pearce the founder of The Sterlingham Company Ltd (formerly Black Country Heritage) celebrate 30 years of bringing his bathroom accessories, towel warmers and sink stand designs to market through in house manufacturing within the Black Country area of England. The Sterlingham name reflects the reliability and dependability of the Pound Sterling and the historic ingenuity of the industrial revolution pervading the small towns around the city of Birmingham. ‘Reliability’ and ‘Ingenuity’ are both words which still resonate strongly within the company some 30 years later. 

OTW: What is your role with Sterlingham?

When I joined The Sterlingham Company as General Manager just over two years ago I joined a company with such vibrancy and skill in manufacturing that it was clear from the outset that very little focus was needed on improving the existing products designs or manufacturing methods. There is a real camaraderie amongst the employees and the pride they take in the products they make is evident throughout. I really believe that each product packaged and sent out to our customers contains a little bit of Sterlingham magic. We’ve worked hard over the last two years creating new brochures, a new website, and our biggest achievement was commissioning a new electroplating plant which gives us full control from start to finish of every process for all our products. I have a real passion for the company and the products that we produce and was extremely humbled when Mr Pearce appointed me Managing Director of the company in May 2015.

OTW: What should a customer consider when purchasing a towel warmer?

Forget the rules. Our Towel Warmer brochure is laid out in ‘Collections’ showing different features such as joint type and size, in each collection is a small number of models. With our products being hand-made, to-order in England our ability to turn your design in to reality is phenomenal. If you see something you like in our brochure but would like it with a different joint, or a different height, width, number of rails, etc, etc let us know. We have a saying “you sketch it, we make it” in reality you sketch it, we produce a CAD drawing (typically within 24 hours) for you to review and sign off on, assuming there are no amendments and an order is placed straight away the towel warmer could be in production just 48 hours after a sketch is received by us and the product in your hands just weeks later. 

OTW: What is Sterlingham's most popular towel warmer?

 It is hard to give you a most popular model of ours, in 2014 92% of towel warmers sold were bespoke sizes or variants of our standard models. If I had to narrow it down to what standard model is used as the base inspiration I would choose our Stourton which is wall mounted and utilises 1 1/4” tubing and classic ball joints. 

OTW: If you were giving a towel warmer as a gift, which model would you give and why?

This is a biased answer because I came up with the concept but our Bewdley towel warmer is the one I would give as a gift. It features just two wall mounts and comes out away from the wall. To me its a perfect model for any rooms where space is at a premium but also where it isn’t. Even when space is of abundance the clever use of it should always be admired. Whilst the ‘standard’ Bewdley towel warmer is 1 1/4” tube and classic ball joints as with all our models we could create this using any of our joint or tube sizes. 

Onlytowelwarmers is an authorized retailer of Sterlingham towel warmers.  Please contact us with any questions. 

 onlytowelwarmers.com is a family owned business that specializes in selling electric towel warmers.