By Pam McClounie

Last updated 05:39, Friday, 26 September 2008

ONE of Cumbria’s best-known family businesses is changing its name to signal the start of a new era.

The familiar Carlisle Glass name will be phased out as the city-based glazing and joinery company becomes known as Longhorn.

The new name is a shortened version of Carlisle Glass’s sister company, Longhorn Hardware.

The company has shops in Cumbria, Lancashire, the north east and Scotland.

The change will see vans switched to Longhorn’s bright new navy and orange livery.

All shop frontages will be changed and there is a snazzy new logo, whose centrepiece doubles as either a spanner with nut or the head of a Longhorn cow.

Director Claire Howe, whose uncle John Pattison founded Carlisle Glass in 1973 with her grandfather George, said: “The business has moved on a long way in recent years, even though it is still proud to maintain its family tradition. We are now embracing a modern 21st century era.

“Carlisle Glass had provided glazing and ironmongery services for a long time before we expanded and opened in Kendal under the Longhorn Hardware name. The joinery side of the business has always remained local to Carlisle rather than Cumbria.

“We realised that the whole thing had become a bit blurred in some people’s minds about who sells what. These changes solve that by putting everything under just one name – Longhorn – while also giving us a clear, clean and contemporary presence.”

The switch means Cumbria’s biggest youth soccer league is renamed the Longhorn Junior Football League for this season.