Formby Hardware

Formby Hardware is an odd shop. As well as housing the usual hardware bits ‘n’ bobs, it also sells various garden ornaments and decorations, something you wouldn’t expect from a small hardware store such as this.
This could be an attempt to compete with larger companies like Homebase and Focus, who completely blow this shop out of the water in terms of size and choice. However, if you’re looking for something specific then this is the place to go, with its location in the middle of Formby village meaning you don’t have to go out of the way to get all your DIY necessities, although it does come at a price.
I don’t generally use it very often (I’m not much of a DIY guy quite yet) so usually my trips in there are restricted to buying electrical tape for my footy socks. Whenever I go in there however, the staff are friendly and will happily point out which tape I’m looking for when they discover me looking puzzled as I end up in the complete wrong section, as well as reminding me of its correct location and recommending the best tape to use.

Shock horror, I have to mark this place down a star! Having had some keys cut at the store at the weekend I returned home eagerly to try them out. Not only do they not fit my door (what? from a keycutters? awful job) but when I returned with the said keys the staff were really haughty with me. Oh Formby Hardware you have let me down.

The name of this shop is a little bit misleading, only a little bit mind. You might imagine that most of what is stocked here is of the home improvement sort-​of-​type-​of thing and you would be sort of right but they also sell all sorts of other garden bits and bobs and things for doing manual jobs around the house; washing baskets, step ladders; door mats and many and much, much many more! Obviously I’m not really aware what these sort items might actually be used for — I’m far too important to do my own washing or tidying up or DIY. It’s not that anyone else does it; I just don’t. I live in a crumbling house surrounded by my own mouldering clothes and festering dishes. On the plus side I have a lot of free time.
They also do key cutting here and have a pretty extensive selection of wall clocks and indeed I’ve personally bought a wall clock from here before which to this day ticks and tocks and all that good stuff. Obviously it’s a bit more expensive here than at B&Q or Homebase but you pay a premium for being able to get the stuff without having to spend several hours of your life, and sacrifice a chunk of your soul wandering around a retail park.