H. Rowlay and Company is a long established family firm of glass and glaziers, now being run by the third and fourth generation of the same family.

Harry Rowlay started the firm in 1920, then his son, also Harry joined, and now it is in the hands of grandson Eric, plus his son Bruce and wife Yvonne.

The Rowlays can do anything with glass – from leaded lights (repairs and new installations) to ultra-modern installations of glass canopies for shopping centres and as covered entrance archways. Indeed their longest installation of patent glazing was a 200m stretch in Eastleigh, near Southampton, in Hampshire, which had to be done only on Saturday nights and Sundays, when the 30 shops were closed and the public away.

Among other sites featuring patent glazing systems and either toughened or laminated glass are in Southport and Morecambe, Worsley Park, Manchester, in Lincoln and in Runcorn Bus station.

Eric and Bruce have also found themselves as the UK’s leading suppliers of distortion mirrors – those mirrors found in fairgrounds which make the viewer, taller, shorter, fatter, slimmer or just a really weird shape. That happened by accident but now glass manufacturers routinely route any enquiries for mirrors to the St Annes Glassworks.