Hampstead Norreys Community Shop celebrates 10 years in business

Customers and staff at the Hampstead Norreys Community Shop celebrated its 10th anniversary with cake.

Plans for a larger event had to be curtailed due to lockdown restrictions, but March 26 did not pass without fanfare, with balloons and bunting hung throughout the premises.

A special cake, featuring an edible montage of scenes from the shop, was cut by volunteer Pamela Betts and slices were handed out to visitors and staff members.

One-hundred-and-fifty commemorative photobooks have been delivered to people involved with the shop, which was started in 2011 and is mainly run by volunteers, detailing the history of the community enterprise.

A 20-minute video has also been released, featuring interviews with the managers and volunteers, including company secretary Elizabeth Howard, who said: “It’s a small shop, but it takes a lot of effort to keep it prospering. I think we have an amazing combination.

“We have an elected management committee of volunteers – and I’m one – which takes ultimate responsibility for keeping the shop going. We have a very skilled, professional shop manager.

“And we have lots of different ideas, which leads to some discussion sometimes, but that’s great – we mustn’t get stuck in a rut.”

Hampstead Norreys villagers conceived the idea of the Community Shop in the late-1990s, after the closure of the village shop and post office. However, it took over a decade for their vision to come to fruition in The Courtyard.

The shop stocks local produce, with a strong emphasis on sustainability and ethical consumption.

In 2019 it was named Britain’s Best Village Shop in the Countryside Alliance Rural Oscars.