The Galleries Community Shop is built, owned and run by the people of Freshford and Limpley Stoke.
We are welcoming and friendly, and we strive to provide affordable, high quality and sustainable products from local producers. We are also a charity and our profits are reinvested back into the community.
One word sums up our vision: community.
Firstly, as the provider of a local shop and café, run and used by members of our community, and second as the creator of a community hub in which to meet old friends, make new ones and feel a warm sense of belonging.
On top of all that, the business maintains an important goal to give back to community projects which in turn will benefit those same people who have supported us.
The very embodiment of community, cohesion and loyalty.
Did you know?
- Galleries is one of the oldest community shops in the country.
- There are 824 community businesses in the country, 433 of whom are community shops. We are one of only a very small number of communities with both a community shop AND a community-owned pub, the Hop Pole Inn.
- The challenges Galleries face are universal to the sector: competition from supermarket deliveries; staff, energy & food cost inflation; wholesaler pressures and challenges in recruiting new volunteers.
- Galleries is responding better than most in offering a wide range of authentic & sustainable products, having an integrated café, offering additional services (post office, prescriptions etc) and being embedded in our local community.
- In a recent visit, Plunkett, the rural community business advisor, scored us a very healthy 8-9 out of 10.
