Start Here

1940’s

It was shortly after the second world war had ended when my uncle Jimmy Hill established ‘Hills’ on the old site of the famous Birkenhead Market.

Our second site

My father Billy Eccles would join the business in the early part of the 1950s and this followed the opening of a second Hills in the old St Johns precinct in Liverpool city centre.

In addition to these ‘permanent’ sites they would load up the old Luton van from the warehouse in Worsley and travel to ‘one-day’ markets in Wrexham and St Helens and the Fleetwood markets during the summer.

(right: St’Johns Precinct in Liverpool)

A new name

In 1972 my father bought the Birkenhead arm of the business from my uncle and changed the trading name to ‘Billy Hill’

Challenging times…

Challenging times were to lie ahead with the enormous fire in November 1974 (which destroyed the main hall of the market) and then the eventual move to the current site of the market in October 1977.

Since then…

Since then, several valued family members and numerous experienced staff have been involved. We have been a tight family unit. Many changes have taken place in both Birkenhead and the market in general.

Now we are about to witness a huge regeneration scheme in the shopping centre with a brand new state of the art Market. One thing that hasn’t and will not change though, is our friendly helpful and efficient service, our commitment to supply quality fabrics at reasonable prices has stood the test of time.

This lead to us being awarded the prestigious title of ‘Market Trader of the Year 1999’ and so for over 70 years we have been ‘curtaining’ the Wirral and beyond.

I can honestly say that we love what we do and are here to help you chose from many, many thousands of fabrics from all over the world.

Mike Eccles (Director)