Trago Mills is a chain of British department stores situated in the West Country. They are sited in the town of Falmouth, and on the outskirts of two other towns at Liskeard, Cornwall and Newton Abbot, Devon. Large department stores were formerly sparse in the rural west country and Trago Mills has endeavoured to fill this gap. The stores' approach to business is to provide a wide variety of stock at low prices. A new store in Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales has been planned for several years and will begin construction in Spring 2011.
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The first store was the Liskeard store, which started life as a small shed, selling items founder Mike Robertson had bought on trips up-country. The current Liskeard store, situated 5 miles west of the town just off the A38, has several acres of parkland and lakes stocked with Koi Carp. It also accommodates several independent businesses, including a newsagent, a butcher and a bakery. The Liskeard store attracts shoppers from all over Cornwall, as well as Plymouth. A particularly distinguishing feature of Trago Mills is the architecture of the buildings at Liskeard and Newton Abbot designed by Charles Hunt of St Neot, Liskeard, Cornwall who was appointed architect in 1978. The buildings have an almost castle like appearance, with tall towers clad in white with black framed windows. The Falmouth store is the smallest of the three, and it is sited near the National Maritime Museum Cornwall. The Newton Abbot site is the largest of the three and covers over 100 acres (0.40 km2) of land and includes the Trago Mills Leisure Park, including The Bickington Steam Railway and the Trago Mills Model Railway, one of the largest model railways in England, as featured on Blue Peter. Akin to the Liskeard site Newton Abbot is home to several independent businesses, predominantly food based with fish & chips, Pasta King, TJ's Burger Bar, Warrens Bakery, and the Pinochio's chain which alone runs four separate outlets. Other non food-based shops include World Of Mobility, an old time sweetshop, a jewellery shop, a small Co-Op Outlet (run by the nearby Co-Op Supermarket), a flower stall and a well stocked fruit and veg stall.
In October 2004 a large fire broke out in the main building of the Newton Abbot branch of Trago Mills.[1] Thirty fire appliances and over 200 fire fighters tackled the blaze. The fire was the largest to occur in the county of Devon for several years. The building(s) involved are now completely rebuilt.
The chain is owned by local businessman Bruce Robertson, son of founder Mike Robertson. He has faced controversy for adverts which he took out in the local paper containing anti-homosexual views. Bruce is also a major supporter of United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), famously refusing to stop using imperial measures in his stores despite contravening European Union law. Despite his opposition to immigration from countries in Eastern Europe, Robertson was revealed in January 2007 to be employing around 30 migrants from Poland in his Newton Abbot store.[2][3][4][5]
In the early 1980s, Trago Mills elected to design and build its own aircraft that could be sold to the British military as a trainer to replace the then ageing "Bulldog" fleet. The result was the Trago Mills SAH-1, which first flew on 23 August 1983.
The SAH-1 was passed over by the armed forces, and in the intervening years, the rights to the design have changed hands several times.