DEACONS is the oldest retail business in Swindon and the second oldest business of any kind.

Only Arkell’s Brewery is older, and when the Swindon Advertiser first appeared in 1854, George Deacon’s firm had already been trading for six years.

“George Deacon advertised his wares in the very first copy of the Swindon Advertiser,” said Richard Deacon.

The firm also turned to the newspaper in a bid to recover stolen goods.

“In 1855 Deacons suffered a robbery. A lot of silver was stolen and George offered a reward of ten whole pounds for information that led to the robbers’ arrest.

The silver has never been recovered, but folklore has it that it was abandoned somewhere on Salisbury Plain.”

Deacons has branches in Royal Wootton Bassett, Faringdon and Marlborough as well as its Old Town base, and Richard heads a 50-strong team.

The Wood Street personnel include four jewellers, an engraver, three watchmakers and a clockmaker.

Bespoke items made by Deacons have ranged from a bishop’s ruby ring of office to a bracelet with a delicately-worked ram’s head in precious metal.

There are also repair jobs, some of which are stories in themselves.

“We were asked to refurbish a Rolex watch that had saved somebody’s life in a motorbike accident. In the force of the crash the watch was between the person and the ground, and so it took a lot of the pressure when this person went along the ground at high speed.

“The watch, obviously, was very badly damaged, but we were able to completely refurbish it to its former glory for this young man who had survived.

“We had to repair the case, we had to completely refurbish the movement, we had to do a new glass. We were able to restore the bracelet.

“It meant a lot to that young man because he’d been given the watch by his father for a 21st birthday present.

“Because we deal with things that are personal to people we’re in a very privileged position to be handling those things. You have to always respect that.”

Richard believes that having such skills on tap, along with continuity as a family business, are among the reasons for Deacons’ longevity.

Another is a policy of offering stock which differs from what Richard describes as run-of-the-mill high street items.

“There has been a reemergence of people wanting proper jewellery that might be different, might be individual or might be a bespoke piece. It might be a piece that somebody wants because it means something very important to them.

“There’s a growth of commissioned work for the very reason that people don’t just want to be having something that’s off the shelf from the general high street traders.

“My late father, Michael, was the fifth generation of the family to run Deacons.

My sister, Sarah, and I are the sixth.” Sarah is a director, as is the siblings’ mother, Joy.

“It’s very much still family orientated,” Richard added.

“In most trades across the board it’s now quite rare because, obviously, things have been amalgamated into bigger and bigger units.

“Everything is still done in-house and this was not only the family’s workplace dating back to George Deacon’s time in 1848, because the family lived and worked at the business.

“It’s only really been in the last three generations, back to my grandfather, that the family has lived off-site.

Before that, the family lived above the shop.

“All the Deacons down the line have, I suppose, been custodians of what has become part of Swindon.