Although it’s always sad to lose local shops and services, there’s something very charming about living in a house that once served a commercial purpose.
Hawkesbury Upton is full of characterful homes wrought from former pubs (so many pubs!), stores, workshops, and even places of worship. As you may know, my cottage is among them, as a former village post office – not to be confused with The Old Post Office just up the road. We never do anything by halves in Hawkesbury Upton.
With the sympathetic conversion of the Methodist Chapel into accommodation well under way, the trend is set to continue. Time will tell whether The Fox* will follow suit.
Where Hawkesbury leads, London follows …
According to Emanuele Midolo of The Times (11 October 2024), thanks to Covid normalising working from home, there are enough empty offices in our capital to provide space for 60,000 flats. These urban workplace conversions will be nowhere near as pretty as those in our village, but I bet they have better mobile signals. Oh, and buses and trains and the Tube and taxis …
Repurposing old commercial premises has always been a great way to supply much-needed housing stock. I’m therefore surprised as I drive about the country to come across the odd shop that clearly closed down years ago, but still retains all its stock, beneath the gathering dust.
These retail equivalents of the Marie Celeste fascinate me.
Are they a benign front for secret drug dens? Is the proprietor lying dead, undetected, behind the counter? Or can they simply not get the staff? I want to know their back stories.
Spotting such shops inspired my latest murder mystery novel, Death at the Old Curiosity Shop. In this story, Alice Carroll (50), moves to the Cotswold village of Little Pride, intending to turn a derelict bric-a-brac shop into a trendy cottage-core home. Only after moving in, she discovers she’s obliged by local planning regulations to keep the shop open for business. Mayhem ensues – as does the obligatory dead body – and Alice must turn amateur sleuth to save her shop, her reputation and her freedom. Death at the Old Curiosity Shop is now available to order online, from local bookstores and libraries, and – of course – from Hawkesbury Stores. Long live our remaining village shops!
*Since I wrote this article for the November issue of the Hawkesbury Parish News, it’s been announced that The Fox has now been bought by a local business who will be reopening it again as a pub with rooms. Hurrah!
IN OTHER NEWS
Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival Christmas Special – Saturday 7th December (11am-3pm)
I’m busy preparing for the last HULF event of 2024, a fun day of festive talks and seasonal stories by visiting authors, plus heartwarming readings of traditional Christmas classics.
It’s a great way to get into the Christmas spirit – and to buy lots of easy-to-wrap Christmas presents for your friends and family! All the authors will be happy to sell you signed copies of their books as personalised Christmas presents.
Guest speakers include writers Linda Alvis, Carole Britton, Lucienne Boyce, Jean Burnett, Frances Evesham, Tiggy Greenwood, John Ruthven, Mark Rutterford, Betty Salthouse, and me.
- Lucienne, Jean and Mark will be reading seasonal stories written especially for this event – we’re very honoured!
- Gerard Boyce will perform some classic Christmas poetry and prose.
- Linda Cohen, founder and director of Read With Me, will also join us to tell us about the great work of this Gloucestershire children’s charity at Christmastime.
The £5 ticket includes tea, coffee, and cake, plus a £2 book token valid on the day. During the lunch break, home-made soup and rolls will be for sale in return for a donation to the Gloucestershire children’s reading charity, Read With Me.
Please note: this event will take place at Hawkesbury Village Hall this year, because our usual winter setting of the Bethesda Chapel is currently being refurbished. We hope to return there in the spring, then to St Mary’s Hawkesbury in September.
BOOK YOUR TICKETS VIA EVENTBRITE HERE
Advance booking is essential to make sure we have enough cake and soup to go around!
