Victoria poolman speaks to 2007 Fencing Champion, Charlie Hubbard

Despite being crowned ‘Fencing Champion 2007’, it’s not all red carpets and medals at J. Hubbard and Son. Quite the opposite actually, with Charlie Hubbard being the honest, modest chap he is. He tells me: “I didn’t go there to win, I just went to put a fence up” - and put a fence up he did, with the expert skill and speed for which his company is renowned.

Coming from solid roots, Charlie’s business was founded by his Great Grandfather, John, back in 1916. John and his son, Charlie’s Grandfather, begun hedge laying, coppicing and dabbling in agricultural fencing alongside their livestock farm and it’s been going strong, evolving with the times, ever since.

As most farmers are aware, the only way to survive is to evolve, and by having fingers in plenty of pies, when times are hard in one industry, the damage is limited by having a lifejacket of diversity. Still living on the 120 acre farm, Charlie keeps a small herd of Aberdeen Angus suckler cattle and, as a result of wife Julie’s passion for horses, the couple also have a small livery yard.

Fencing, buildings and gates remain the mainstay of the Hubbards’ enterprise, with the company’s main area centring around Warwickshire and the West Midlands, though Charlie and his team are happy to travel if required.

Clearly well-liked and valued by their clients, the Hubbard fencing team are always in demand. However, with the current climate being a tad unstable, Charlie is the first to admit that things on their domestic side has slowed down slightly. At this time of year we would usually be flat out with domestic quotes, but at the moment it’s quieter than usual as people are being cautious about spending their money in the wake of all this scaremongering.”

Luckily, Charlie has a large customer base that ensures enough repeat and return work, so in the meantime, while the market stabilises, he’s happy to focus on the industrial and equine side of things, which are doing very well.

“It’s all swings and roundabouts, the bespoke side is keeping us busy at present, and as those jobs tend to take a long time and generate a good amount of income, we don’t need to rely on just one section of the market.
Though J. Hubbard & Son has hedged its bets when it comes to the different areas of the business, one problem that spills over into all of their areas is the ongoing issue of timber treatment.

“It’s something that we have to consider,” Charlie tells me - “we have just had one stock netting job which we did about three years ago where the straining posts have rotted. Whether it’s a lack of timber treatment on one batch of posts, I don’t know. We are considering offering creosoted posts as an option for customers”

“We buy a lot of our materials on the timber side from M&M, snow timber and Charlton, whose quality of timber and treatment are very good and we use all their wide range of gates.”

However, business is going strong and bringing with it some rather unusual jobs. Charlie fills me in: “We’ve just put 1000 metres of perimeter fencing around a soft air site.” A what? “It’s where people run around firing automatic BB guns at each other. We erected a six-feet high netting fence to catch the pellets, machine gun towers, bunkers and a big concrete ‘military compound’ in the centre. We also put in some wooden structures made to look like pill boxes. It’s been fun, all camouflage and sandbags – this new game is just like paintballing, without the paint.” Needless to say, Hubbards have got their Christmas party already planned.
Another unusual job for the company was the recent building of a big sheep cheese store at Ram Hall Farm near Coventry.

“The job required us to manufacture and erect a prefabricated cheese store within a modern cold store with shelving made entirely from white pine, because it does not weep resin over the cheese. The store now holds 1,700 cheeses of the Berkswell hard cheese variety.”

From the looks of things, come the end of 2008 the team at J. Hubbard & Son will be celebrating another successful year. And with plans afoot 2009 looks set to be an exciting year for Charlie, as he tells me that he hopes to develop the retail side of the business, supplying timber and fittings direct from the yard.
Charlie is the first to admit that he thoroughly enjoys what he does, as he tells me the most important aspect of the business is doing a good job and being proud of his work.

The status of champion is just a bonus, then. Indeed, as this goes to print, Charlie and the team will be competing in Tornado wire’s fencing competition, where it’s all about traditional methods of fencing, so he’ll be putting down the Gripple and reverting to the fencing skills passed down his bloodline instead. As for the Fencing and Landscaping News Championships 2008 – Charlie reckons that judging it this year will be a lot easier than putting the fence up.

For more information, visit www.jhubbardandson.co.uk or call 01676 535269