The Henchman family

Welcome to Henchman!  Firstly, thank you very much to those of you who took an interest in Henchman last year and who supported us with your shopping here.

If, like me you find the garden a great place to unwind after a long day or week you'll know it's not all sun bathing - there are some tough tasks that need doing too, whatever the time of year.  This is where Henchman comes in - Henchman products make tough tasks easier on you.

The Henchman business continues on into it's 16th year under the new ownership of the second generation.  Following the pioneering design in 1994 of a range of safe hedge cutting platforms, Henchman Ltd remain the market leader; and the product, in my humble but informed view, the safest on the market today.  To back up this claim are the over 22,000 gardeners who have put their trust in Henchman to date when working at height, and who continue to do so (which is why we're still here!).  Extra confidence can be taken from the fact that the Professional sector chooses Henchman too.  There are amongst others, over half a dozen royal households, a hundred local authorities, several hundred schools, colleges, hospitals - including the NHS, and numerous estates such as The National Trust, The RHS, the Eden Project and Hampton Court Palace using Henchman platforms and other products.

The company

Our family company has moved on in the 16 years since my father first used my GCSE woodwork project - a hedge cutting platform - to cut his hedges.  I scraped a pass and the hedges got cut quicker and with out a repeat of the ladder diving trick the old man pulled the year before.

Having discovered there was no such thing as a safe hedge cutting platform available, real engineers began the hard graft of designing a product that worked as perfectly as possible to solve these difficult maintenance tasks.  Even this year we continue to improve and add to the range to suit varying applications and customer requirements.

The name ‘Henchman’ has become pretty well known. We changed our company name from Haygate Engineering to Henchman Limited in 2008, in order to embrace all areas where our product solutions can help you in the garden and home. Same company – same people!

Even with our combined experience of over 40 years in supplying carefully designed product solutions to householders and professionals, we continue to learn important lessons in how to serve you better.  Please keep your helpful feedback coming in to encourage us to keep trying to improve.

We are personally very excited that our product range is naturally growing into interesting fields such as rain water harvesting and recycling.  This year there is the very simple but effective Easy Lift Harness and a full UK built Log splitter Range.  To compliment the safe platform range is the Tripod Ladder, not quite in the same league as our platforms we feel, but worthwhile because they are far more suitable than ordinary ladders and step ladders for working on garden ground.

We don't compromise on quality­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­

Over 75% of our products are manufactured and assembled in the UK.

All Henchman platforms are manufactured in the UK by a company registered to ISO 9001-2000.

All aluminium Hi-Steps are designed to BS EN 131 guidelines.

All Henchman platforms conform to GPSR 2005 and WAHR 2005.

All Tripod Ladders are manufactured under ISO 9001-2000 conditions.

Henchman Hi-Step voted: Best Garden Product at National Gardening Awards.

All Shredder Chippers are manufactured in Europe and comply with strict European CE Regulations.

All Log splitters are manufactured in the UK and conform to EU CE regulations.

All ComposTumblers are the world standard and are manufactured in the USA.

All Henchman Barrow Trailers are manufactured in the UK by companies registered to ISO 9001-2000.

The Henchman team has over 40 years combined experience with which to help you.

Patents granted: 2299313 and 2412899

Our People

General and Marketing Manager -Tom Kitching

Post university Tom gained a qualification in teaching to allow him the long sought after opportunity to travel and work abroad.  He started his fulltime Henchman career in the workshops during the winter of 2000, testing and packing Henchman platforms (having done ad hoc sales and manual roles for the family business prior to this) - Not forgetting his role in the bringing to life of the Henchman safe hedge cutting platform invention while at school.   Eight years on he is experienced in all aspects of the business and has been running the company for 2 years since Mike Kitching took a non executive role as Chairman.

Administration and Product Manager -Al Jameson

Al's degree in sports science led him to work in the leisure industry until the realisation of long hours and poor pay motivated him to seek experience elsewhere.  Al fulfilled sales roles in the buildings industry, before redudancy struck in 2001.   Fortunately Henchman came knocking shortly after and Al started in the workshops for Henchman just like everyone else.  Al has also gained experience in most areas of Henchman's business from sales to shows management  and has managed product supply since 2005.

Non Executive chairman -Mike Kitching

Mike has recently earnt semi retirement having spent the core of his career at the heart of the development of the computer industry.  Decades of experience across a multitude of business disciplines and different business' turned out to be the ideal foundation for starting his own in his late 50's.   A fall from a ladder inspired the concept of a safe hedgcutting platform, the idea for which was scribbled onto the back of an envelope and handed to son Tom.  Mike started the Henchman business in 1994 and has tried to bring the benefits of a safe alternative to ladders to gardeners across the UK and Europe.

Finance Manager -Shane Dowling

The bulk of Shanes career has been within the banking industry, largely corporate banking.   Shane now specialises in finance management within small companies and joined Henchman part time at the beginning of 2006.