The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester visited Mells village on Thursday 30th October to present Mells Village Shop with a Somerset County Council Chairman’s Award for Excellence in the Community.
The award recognises the shop and Post Office’s10 years of service to the village since it was set up as a community social enterprise in 2009. In that time, it has grown to also include a bustling cafe.
Their Royal Highnesses were greeted by staff and volunteers that are the backbone of this valued rural service. The Duke and Duchess presented the plaque to Mike Phypers, shop manager, and Liz O’Sullivan, management committee member with responsibility for volunteers. The Duchess was presented with a basket of local produce in which the shop specialises by some children from Mells First School.
While visiting Mells the Duke and Duchess took time to walk around the church, the Talbot Inn and dropped in on the launch of the new community nursery at the Walled Garden at Mells.
The nursery was bustling with children carving pumpkins and doing other crafts. Students from Edventure in Frome have been developing this underutilised space over the last nine weeks as part of their start-up course.
The nursery will work with local community groups to grow and sell hardy perennials that will fund social and therapeutic horticulture programmes in the garden, improving the health and wellbeing of those that may be experiencing loneliness and isolation.
The nursery’s director Sam Evans said, “It was exciting to launch this initiative after all the hard work of the Edventure students and have the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester see the space so busy and vibrant. It was also wonderful for the community to see how the nursery will develop over the coming year.”
