Afonwen was founded in 1935 as the Afonwen Steam Laundry Limited by the Owen family. From the very beginning, Afonwen has always been a family-run business, aiming to provide a personal service to its customers. The business started supplying local families and small boarding houses in the days that families headed to Wales to stay in seaside boarding houses to ‘take the air' and admire the beautiful scenery of North Wales.

When Afonwen was established it began business by serving local families who relied on the local laundry to provide a domestic personal laundry service for their domestic use before the advent of the modern day washing machine. The business gradually expanded to beyond the local community on the Llyn Peninsula, to serve surrounding towns in North Wales including Caernarfon, Bangor and Betws-y-Coed.

In 1976, Afonwen was acquired by the Woolfenden family who have run the business ever since. Following its acquisition, Afonwen began updating its washing machinery and focused attention on linen hire, providing linen and laundry services primarily to the Hotel industry throughout North Wales, enabling it to expand its service to cover the major tourist destinations of Anglesey, the famous seaside town of Llandudno and surrounding areas.

By 1981, Afonwen had built up a strong presence in the North Wales Hotel industry and moved with the times, ending its domestic laundry service to private customers, many of whom were increasingly processing their own laundry at home thanks to the availability of good-quality and low cost domestic washing machines.

This enabled Afonwen to concentrate on the further expansion of its linen hire service which required high volume linen hire production. This encouraged Afonwen to invest further and extend its territory of service into England as well as expanding its service throughout Mid Wales in seeking new customers.

In 1986, Afonwen became a franchisee of Brooks Service Group plc, at the time a major national linen hire supplier and worked very closely with Brooks in developing its customer base, securing nationwide Hotel contracts that allowed both businesses to grow and Afonwen Steam Laundry Company name was changed to Afonwen Services Limited.

As Afonwen continued to expand, the decision was taken to move from the original production facility where the business was founded, on the main Pwllheli to Criccieth road, to a new, purpose-built, production facility so that the business could continue to grow.

Construction on the site was completed by May 1999 and Afonwen relocated its entire operation over a bank holiday weekend, whilst ensuring its service remained uninterrupted throughout. Since the move, Afonwen has grown even more dramatically, doubling the volume of work it processes in five years and its quality of service has continued to be strengthened, as the business has grown, increasing consistently every year as our business has expanded.

In 2007 Afonwen's Directors founded Whiteriver Laundry, our new sister laundry, covering Yorkshire and began working on a plan to open a major new commercial laundry in South Wales to meet the needs of a region historically poorly served by the laundry industry.

In the spring of 2008, a major £5 million investment programme was announced with the support of the Welsh Assembly Government and our new state-of-the-art production facility opens this Summer, enabling us to dramatically increase our capacity and extend our service reach.

The original founders of the business and all the staff who have worked for Afonwen over many years have much to be proud of in playing their part in transforming a small local laundry, serving the local community, into one of the leading independent linen hire companies in the United Kingdom today.