Retail guru and broadcaster Mary Portas will visit the Handmade in Painswick pop-up shop on Saturday as part of the Love Painswick event.
The community fair will take place at The Painswick Centre on Saturday, July 3rd from 10am-5pm and will showcase and support local businesses to help sow the seeds of economic regeneration, and to provide a day of fun for people to enjoy after many long months of lockdown.
Love Painswick will give businesses a chance to show off what they do and engage their audience, while visitors will have a chance to discover just how much the valleys have to offer.
Stalls will include vintage wares from Liberty London Girl, flowers and posies from the Unwalled Garden, handmade furniture from 12Tree, ethical swimwear from Blood Red Clothing, coffee and cake from The Box, wine from When in Rome, and pizza from Bella Mia.
The art studios at The Painswick Centre will be open, so visitors can wander round the working environment of the five artists-in-residence and browse some of their work. Painswick Jewellery Workshop will be running a pre-booked workshop in the morning, the local alpaca herd will be visiting, and there will be magic performed by Colin Dymond.
Mary Portas will visit Handmade in Painswick at around 11am to show her support for the venture. Synonymous with regeneration, innovation and localism, Handmade in Painswick is the brainchild of friends and neighbours Sandra Randle and Anne-Marie Randall. The shop stocks a range of beautiful goods created by artists and artisans who live and work in the Painswick Valley.
Sandra explained: “Research has shown that people want to shop local. Villages like Painswick are poised to reinvent their community base as of days past, but in a new and dynamic incarnation.
“Retail premises within Painswick are gaining approval to move to residential use at a worrying pace. This short-term thinking on behalf of the local council should not go unchallenged. Retail doesn’t just have a place within Painswick, it is the beating heart of a community which already holds connection at its core.”
