2017
Forty candles
A Christmas market in Ludlow, sold out before lunch.
Our story
Two people, one Victorian herbal and a garden that grew faster than anyone expected.
- Recipes from an 1860 herbal, tested and kept
- Forty-two plants grown behind the shop
- Four of us, in an old bakery
How it began
Elin Wren inherited a herbal from her great-grandmother, a midwife in Clun, with notes pencilled in every margin. Tom Yarrow kept bees and needed somewhere to put the wax.
In 2017 they made forty candles for a Christmas market and sold every one by eleven in the morning.
How we work now
Four of us make everything in the old bakery behind the shop. We grow what we can, buy the rest from people we have met, and never make more than we can sell in a month.
If a recipe in the herbal does not work, we say so in the margin, as she did.
So far
2019
The shop on Mill Street
An old bakery with its ovens still in the back.
2021
The herb garden
A quarter of an acre behind the shop, dug by hand.
2024
Marches Food Awards
Best small producer, for the evening tea.
Who makes it
Elin Wren
Herbalist and founder
Writes the recipes and still checks every batch by nose.
Tom Yarrow
Beekeeper and founder
Keeps the hives, the wax and the accounts, in that order.
Nia Jenkins
Candle maker
Pours every candle and can tell a scent from across the room.
Gareth Lloyd
Gardener
Grows the calendula, the lavender and most of the tea.
Come and say hello
The kettle is usually on. Wednesday to Saturday, ten until five.