A visit to Sugden and Daughters

On Saturday we called in to see Louisa at Sugden and Daughters in their fantastic new sales space at the Red Lion pub in Yardley Hastings, Northanmptonshire.

Our paths have crossed online through their Facebook page and as a result of us both having a space at Finders Keepers at Lollyrocket in Kettering, but we'd never met in person.

We'd watched the transformation of the barn in Yardley Hastings as Louisa and husband Mark turned it from unloved shell to rustic showroom,so it was great to see it in person.

The showroom at the Red Lion

We love the rustic pieces

Sugden and Daughters sell a great range of antiques, painted furniture, candles and other vintage splendidness as well as being a stockist of Little Greene paint. Until now they had been concentrating on antiques fairs - and these will still be a key part of the Sugden and Daughters business - but when the opportunity to establish a permanent sale space came up, it was too good to turn down.

Want!

Close-up of the sales desk - soon to be sold!

Laura would have been in this photo,
but she hadn't done her hair...

It's a set-up that works well for both parties - Sugden and Daughters bring in new customers for the pub and the pub opens up a whole new audience to Sugden and Daughters. We'd love to see more of this going on across the country. We're always hearing about how many pubs are closing in the UK every week - it's a staggering number and a real shame, so we have to take our hats off to The Red Lion and Sugden and Daughters for this initiative.

We were only there for an hour or so, but saw just how impressed the customers were with the showroom. Louisa says the customers have been a mixture of villagers and people who have been following them on social media, so the system obviously works.

It was only their second weekend of trading and things are going well, with plenty of sales and a whole bunch of new customers. Louisa and Mark have been working so hard on getting this right that it can only be a success and we wish them all the best for the future.

Go along and take a look for yourself - and buy yourself something so you can say you owned a Sugden and Daughters piece before they were famous...

Getting It Right - #4 Lollyrocket

If you’ve paid any attention at all to our Facebook page, you’ll know all about Lollyrocket.
Lollyrocket is a shop. And a tea room. And a craft and vintage centre. And a record shop. And a bit of a social media monster. The strings to Lollyrocket’s bow are added to constantly. We wouldn’t be surprised if next time we visited they’d opened their own international helipad on the roof.

Tea and cake. Stop drooling!

Lollyrocket – run by Michelle and Hayleigh – started up as a hobby and was essentially just a couple of friends selling homemade candles in their living room. But these girls just don’t know when to quit and within a matter of months have created an under-one-roof empire on Kettering’s Gold Street.
Downstairs is Lollyrocket the shop, stocking a well-chosen selection of gifts that happily straddle cool, kitsch and cute. Sharing the ground floor is the vintage tea-room, which also hosts craft sessions and appears to have been a roaring success.

OMNOMNOM

Upstairs, on the middle floor, is Finders Keepers – where our main showroom can be found. This is a hand-picked selection of craft, vintage and handmade items from local sellers, including vintage clothes, cushions, jewellery, kitchenalia, photography and, of course, furniture.
Upstairs again is newest venture Rocket Records – a vinyl lover’s dream.

Our little slice of Finder Keepers

Not content with working six days a week, making tea, running up and downstairs, ordering stock, looking after their sellers’ pieces and a million other things we haven’t thought of, Michelle and Hayleigh are seemingly online 24/7 (we don’t think they sleep) promoting not only their own enterprises, but working hard on behalf of the sellers in Finders Keepers - updating their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts with the latest items and arranging sales with people all over the country.
As a customer, you couldn’t ask for better service. And neither could you as a seller. Nothing has ever been too much trouble for Michelle, Hayleigh and the rest of the LR team. They’ve offered support and advice, been generous with their time and promoted our business to their growing army of followers.
It’s hard to see anything but success for Lollyrocket – it’s very rare to come across such a winning combination of hard work, taste, ambition, customer service and all-round-bloody-loveliness.
Even if you’re not near Kettering, make the effort – pay them a visit. You won’t be disappointed.