When he was 26 Walter started out on his own. He opened his first shop in Poolstock, but did not stay there long. He opened a shop in Hindley opposite what is now the Wiganer pub, and in 1925 moved the short distance to 4 Wigan Road, the shop which remains open today. This move came 5 years after Walter's son, Harry Hurst, had been apprenticed to him on January 2nd, 1921, just turning 14 years old.

The main business was clogmaking, which was the firm's "bread and butter" until the end of the Second World War. In the 1920s and 30s, Walter Hurst employed 6 men preparing, making and repairing clogs, and just one shoe repairer - such was the demand for clogs from the workers in the 6 cotton mills and 16 mines within the Hindley boundary.

After the War clog wearing, and therefore clogmaking, went into decline. In the 1960s, however, the popularity of clogs was revived when it was suggested that clogs were the best form of footwear for young children's feet when they are beginning to walk. In the 1970s clog and morris dancing came back into vogue, with new teams springing up all over the country. Business started to buck up, but by this time there were very few cloggers left to respond to the demand.

The present Walter Hurst, grandson of the founder, started work in the shop in 1957, following in the footsteps of his father. Today, Walter is the last remaining clogger in the Wigan area. He works as a one-man business now, making clogs in the same Hindley shop, using the same light, slim-shafted hammer his grandfather used over 100 years ago.