What business stayed open at the start of the pandemic ?

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I've looked it up but a lot of info is vague. Did companies that were not essential, but not open to the public, stay open with social distancing measures ?

god no, didn't stay open, how can you forget.
Depends on the exact date, and where in Britain you mean (slightly different rules in Wales vs. England etc.)
Also you may be thinking of 'essential' as something not how govt defined it then.

There are timelines, or you can search old newspaper articles & UK gov archives.

I can remember for myself and people I know. And that the roads were deserted

I found this on a lawyer's site

Any business which does not sell or hire goods to the public in a shop, provide library services, nor is on the below list of hospitality, service and leisure businesses below that must also close can remain open, but must operate social distancing measures and given the need for a reasonable excuse for individuals to leave the house is unlikely to be able to be open to the public

All businesses that could continue to do their work somehow did so, with many keeping a skeleton staff and using furlough to keep them on the payroll.

What is it you are trying to find out exactly?

@AlisonDonut I'm thinking of eg technology developers and say industrial laboratories during this time, whether they would have kept people coming in but with social distancing. It's really frustrating because government documents have been withdrawn for some reason

My business stayed open. We manufacture bags. Manufacturing was allowed to stay open even though not "essential ". We were asked to make body bags at the start of the pandemic but didn't as we strongly suspected we would not be paid and this turned out to be true as other sewing businesses we know found out the hard way.

Search gov.uk and the national archives. Although documents are withdrawn they should still be about. Just not the first search results you get. They don't want people to think they are live web pages / docs.

Mine did, with social distancing. Small scale manufacturing, B2B.

I worked through out the whole lockdown. Two industry. We all just worked remotely though. The office closed. The building was closed so going into the office wasn't essential. Ended up just getting rid of all our offices as turns out we didn't need them

I worked in a place that supplied florists and that stayed open. I’m still bitter about not getting furloughed when other people I worked with did.

Bike shops stayed open. Deemed essential

Yes, I worked for a furniture manufacturer, we stayed open, a lot of us were furloughed as there wasn't much work coming in but they stayed open with a skeleton staff.

Manufacturers were allowed to stay open.

I own a dog boarding kennels.
We stayed open, mainly had NHS workers dogs in for a couple of days here and there, depending on shifts - they brought dog on long lead, let them come over to us and we swapped them onto our lead - all done outside.
Also had a couple of rescue dogs in for the whole time, until they could be viewed and rehomed.

Manufacturing generally stayed open with social distancing, regular testing and WFH for roles where this was possible.

If the process required laboratory support then its likely they stayed open but likely at reduced capacity.

I think a lot of office type jobs went to wfh. Dh wasn’t furloughed but wfh the whole of the lockdowns. Other jobs such as factories, food processing etc would have stayed open. I remember a lot of covid outbreaks at food processing companies and they were saying how hard it was to social distance.

And my regular dog groomer closed but another one close by stayed open. For dog welfare cuts only, and she said if you felt your dog needed cutting then it was a welfare cut. I have a dog which matts like crazy so she had regular haircuts, I had to put her in a kennel in the garden and leave, so full social distancing.

We only closed for a couple of weeks (coffee shop with drive thru) and when we opened we were only supposed to serve essential staff.

Customers came for miles just for a coffee. It was ridiculous considering we were supposed to be locked down

Sounds like you are writing a book.

Lots of businesses stayed open but staff WFH and the usual place of business was only attended by 1 person (especially the owner or usual main facilities person) or socially distanced.

My DS worked at a research and development place and they stayed open. The staff went to work as normal, I'm not sure how strictly they enforced social distancing as a whole but he was in a lab and on his own or with one other person most of the time anyway. I remember him saying the canteen closed.

I worked in a contract lab that did research for clinical trials and that was open, some people worked partially at home and others had a shift system so not too many were in at once.

Lots of construction and associated companies stayed open. Boris told us to.

Some of our local dog groomers remained open with social distancing at all times.

Drop off and pick up in a kennel which was wiped down after each visit and rather than have back to back appointments they left 30 minutes between each appointment to prevent customers passing each other.

Loads of people were working, they didn't just shut down all the manufacturing, laboratories, construction etc, though from threads on here you would think it was only the emergency services, NHS, Amazon and supermarkets that were working outside the home

We stayed open entirely as normal, Electrical Contractors, as we work primarily in commercial settings things just carried on as normal - it was a very busy period as many people were booking jobs in as their business was closed.
I can remember pulling all nighters to get restaurant and shop refits completed, we didn't do much in the way of social distancing etc., I'm sure we played lip service to it occasionally, but generally it was business as usual but extra busy.

Eventually I picked up Covid from a domestic customer, so moved their job forward and worked in their house that two weeks with a plumber and chippy, we all had it, as did the customers, we all felt pants but soldiered on!