• Home
• News
• iWhere
• iCare
• iWear
• Contact lenses
• Kids
• iHear
• iHealth
• Blog

 

Davis Opticians – Our History

Once upon a time…..well, over forty years ago….our founding partner Rod Davis bought an established independent practice in Kettering Northamptonshire when the owner retired. We were called Ashbournes then, but Rod re-christened us Rodney Davis Opticians. We started out in a small office in Gold Street, Kettering. Rod started testing in Thrapston at the Doctors surgery, and then we started our own practice, next door to the Post Office in 1979. Shortly after this we opened a branch in Rothwell High Street.

The Kettering practice moved to our present premises, Moyune House, around 35 years ago. This was a beautiful Victorian property complete with stables! We converted the latter into a lens workshop, the first opticians in town to have glazing facilities. Nick, Jeremy and Kim joined the firm soon afterwards, and we became Rodney Davis & Partners.

     Moyune House

Rod also tested patients in their own homes from the very early days, a service which we still provide. We have also been closely involved in testing for the Hospital eye service.

In the early nineties we became one of the first Carl Zeiss lens centres in the county, improving the range and standard of lenses we could offer our patients. We have stayed with German manufacturers ever since and are now one of the biggest accounts for Rodenstock in the UK.

In 1997 our Kettering practice underwent a major refurbishment, trebling the dispensing area and adding a screening room. We also bought new premises for the Thrapston practice, a large Victorian house that was a Butchers shop! Shortly afterwards we refurbished Rothwell to match the style of our other branches.

In 2002 we were one of the first 20 practices in the country to install an Optomap machine, offering our patients state of the art Retinal screening. This revolutionary technology allowed us to examine the Retina in the greatest possible detail, and store and e-mail images. We now have Retinal screening in every practice, with the next generation of Retinal cameras moving on from the Optomap. 

  Retinal Imaging

On our forty year anniversary in 2003, we changed our name to Davis Optometrists, to reflect the fact that Rod Davis retired. He still calls in regularly to keep an eye on us! We also spread our wings a little further than Northamptonshire and opened a brand new branch in Olney, Buckinghamshire.

We extended our patient care services in 2004 with training to provide check ups for Advance Vision Care of Harley street, providing pre-surgical assessment and aftercare for Laser Surgery patients.

More recently we’ve been joined by optician Roz Giles who did her post-graduate clinical training with us. Ewa Goulding, Louise James and Ricahrd Hollingsworth also test for us on a part time basis. Our newest Optometrist Bela Ghedia joined us in January 2011.

In response to patient requests we started opening on Saturday afternoons in 2007, initially at Kettering but due to demand we are now open at Thrapston on a Saturday too. In 2009 we began late night testing at Kettering on Thursday evenings.

In Autumn 2009 we took delivery of our Ocular Coherance Tomography camera – the OCT. We had the 9^th instrument in the world! This amazing new technology enables us to examine the internal structures of the eye in 3D, in even greater detail than with our retinal cameras. It can be used for early detection of disease, in monitoring eye conditions and storing information about individual patients’ ocular health for future reference.

We’re proud of our history and our constant evolution. Our family values and our experience give us solid foundations to work from, and the confidence to seek out the newest innovations and best care for our patients. We are proud of our status as an Independent Opticians which allows us to give unbiased advice and offer a vast product range. We love what we do and we’re looking forward to the excitement of the next forty years!

For more information on Independent Opticians got to www.eyelovelocal.co.uk