Reopening of the famous shed shop

On April the 20^th we decided to reopen the shed shop, we’ve got all the measures in place, and our QR scan code and the tourists and walkers are slowly returning to the places they love, so it seems the logical thing to do, and I suppose it is a welcome return for our customers.

During the lockdown, our web trade has seen phenomenal growth, but there’s nothing quite like the human interaction that you get in a draughty old shed on the slopes of a mountain, there’s something heartening seeing people marvel at what we make, picking up lamps or stroking rolling pins, entranced at the simple beauty and marvelling at the sedimentation and surreal patina of the Westmorland green slate, or the glint of some quartz or pyrites trapped in the Brathay blue-grey slate.

The shed shop gives people the opportunity to interact with our centuries-old craft that web culture simply lacks, no web photo comes close to seeing how the sun glints off the copper infills on the numerals of a kitchen clock or the way it highlights the differing shades of a particularly interesting piece of slate or beautiful creamy bay cliff limestone, the shed shop gives people that link between raw rock and finished piece.

From our point of view as well, the experience of shopping in a shed on the side of a mountain, in one of the most beautiful parts of the UK, means that our hit rate is far greater. On the web, we may get 100 clicks for every sale, but on the mountain, we usually get 1 visit = 1 sale, if you ever visit its worth remembering that, even the most hard-nosed shopper faced with the authenticity and beauty of the products finds it hard not to say “ok ill buy this”, it’s the tug of the mountains and a great result for all of us.