The Pictorial Record, Volume III, no. 26. September 1900, included:
Among the most important of local concerns is the large building and contracting business of Messrs. R. Butcher & Son, which dates back some seventy years. A great uncle of the present proprietor, who carried on the trade of a plasterer only, was the founder of the concern, but in the hands of his successor, Mr. James Grant, it became a general decorating business. Then the present owner’s father became proprietor, and since his decease, building, joinery, masonry and other departments have been added. Mr. Butcher also trades extensively as a line burner and lime merchant, renting the quarries on the Downs near the town, where the lime burning has been carried on for generations. The product is a very superior one, and is in demand practically in every centre of the building trade in England, Mr. Butcher’s enterprise being mainly responsible for this, he having made what was previously a local trade into one of large outside connections.
The general building and storage yards are at 14 Church Street and 2 Silver Street, there being at both places a large and comprehensive stock of builders’ and contractors’ materials. There are good joinery shops, stores for painters’ and decorators’ materials and impedimenta, masons’ sheds, glaziers’ shop, stables and other indispensable adjuncts of an all-round business.
Scaffolding, flag stones and stone rough or wrought, can be supplied in any quantity, as well as timber, lime, cement, and the materials of the building trades generally.
The firm contract for the erection and equipment of buildings, and have a large general jobbing business. As paper hangers and decorators, too, they hold a leading place, and are equally at home in plain and elaborate work of this class. Estimates in this or other departments are furnished free, and work can always be put in hand and finished promptly. Mr. Butcher personally superintends everything, and being himself a thoroughly practical man, bred to the business, this is a guarantee of satisfaction to his clients.