Our History

Founded during the reign of Queen Victoria by Joseph Harper, the Harper Group began life as J. Harper & Sons (Blackheath) in 1898. J. Harper and Sons is now part of the Harper Group but founder company and enlarged corporate body alike have the same good name for quality and reliability that grew from those early beginnings.

A lot of Joseph Harper’s early work was on house building, and that took the company into local authority work on schools and roads as well as hospitals and public houses. In the 1950’s and 60’s, following the war, Harper Group were increasingly called upon to build houses and flats as well as industrial premises.

The Harper name and the quality of work carried out by the firm continued to be prominent in the Midlands and opportunities came along to expand operations into other areas of the country. Small family firms in Leominster, Bristol and Salisbury were acquired and added to the company’s strength. It soon became apparent that the sheer volume of work, geographical distances and all the necessary and attendant administration called for structural changes in the Harper operations.

So, in 1985 the Harper Group came into being and by 1990 the company’s turnover had doubled to £30 million.

The group continues to expand and operates from its head office in the heart of the industrial Black Country, in Leominster (rural Herefordshire) and more recently, the South West in Tewkesbury.

Principal group activities are construction and development in both the public and private sectors and projects built at the turn of the century testify to the quality and durability of schemes undertaken by the group.

Amongst the group’s many prestigious projects are shops, factories, offices and thousands of homes built for local authorities, housing associations, national house builders and business expansion scheme companies. The group is also engaged in the construction and maintenance of new and existing educational and health care establishments and leisure amenities.

With its professional staff and workforce, the group continually strives to improve its standards and efficiency and believes that it retains the flexibility needed to respond quickly and efficiently to the demands of current clients.

The Harper Group has flourished over the last century with quality and dependability being the cornerstone of our success. As Harper Group moves forwards it will continue to “Build with Confidence”.