If you refer to the map to locate our shop - the map is wrong but cannot be altered. The shop is situated at the junction of Over Lane (not Over Road) with School Lane. This profile will show you all about Baslow village shop and Post Office. The shop trades under the SPAR brand but is entirely owned and run by the Upton family - husband and wife Christine & David and their son David and daughter
Emily. Other staff* work alongside the family who have owned the business since 2003.
*(Note added January 2021).
2020 proved to be a very difficult year for us as a business. In 2003 when we took the business on, it was the only shop serving quite a wide area but by 2020, with increased competition, trade had really slumped to the point where by early 2020 we realised we could not go on any longer and with much regret, we announced to the community that we would be selling-up. Our wonderful staff were let go, and as a family of four, we proposed to keep the shop and Post Office going until such time as the business/site sold - we assumed by the summer. Then something totally unexpected happened and Coronavirus arrived in the UK. We were then asked if we could provide a delivery service to all the residents who would soon be self isolating? How could we with just four left to run the business? The solution was very swiftly found in a small army of local volunteers who came forward and began taking orders out on our behalf. We went from calling it a day to working flat-out virtually overnight. Almost exactly 12 months later (late Jan 2021), things are much calmer now. We deliver still to several customers, but can manage to do so ourselves and do so in our own distinctive delivery van. We will however be eternally grateful to all those who volunteered to help when the need arose and to all those who have continued to use the shop and thus make it viable for us to continue for the foreseeable future. Here is some of the shop's history:
The shop business started life in the late 1930s in the kitchen of the cottage beside the shop. That business grew to a point where it became necessary to take over the front room in which a counter was built just inside the front door. Any more than three customers, and others had to queue on the garden path. As the business continued to grow, it was eventually decided a purpose-built shop was the answer and so in the late 1950s the cottage garden was cleared and an outbuilding demolished to make room for the new building. This went up in the very early 1960s but was almost immediately recognised as being too small and so 2/3 years later the building was doubled in size to what we have today. The shop served the community well and survived while others - curiously situated on the main road through the village passed away. By 2002 the elderly lady owner knew it was time to step down and so the business was put on the market at which point Christine and David showed an interest and eventually went on to purchase the business and site which includes the cottage in which the business was first started. Today this cottage is a very popular two bedroomed holiday cottage.
