At the Thomas Shop

I met my friend in Shrewsbury and we caught the Swansea train from the station which took us through the most wonderful countryside via Church Stretton, past the Long Mynd, through Craven Arms and Knighton into Wales.  We travelled over the viaduct at Knucklas and through Dolau and Penybont (our final destination) to Llandrindod Wells.  We decided not to request a stop at Penybont as it is about a mile and a half from the station to the village and our friend, who lives in the village, has given up driving her car so she couldn't collect us.  We arrived in Llandod on time and had half an hour to wait (we found a nice coffee shop near the station)  for the bus to Hereford which would take us through the village.

The bus stopped not far from our friend's little cottage so we went there first before walking down over the river to our B&B at the Thomas Shop - named after the family that owned it and ran it as a local shop.  We have stayed here before on our visits and I always sleep in the little room whose window is next to the T on the shop front.  The bed is so comfy and covered with a beautiful homemade quilt and there was a lovely terracotta pot of cowslips in each of our rooms.

As well as offering B&B Derek and Liz, the owners of the Thomas shop,  also have the shop museum, craft workshops which occasionally offer courses on crafts like rag rugging and quilting.  Upstairs is the Wool Emporium with various fleeces and yarns as well as colourful handmade items like jumpers, bags and scarves.  There is also a coffee shop with wonderful homemade cakes.

Liz was busy with a new project making handmade dolls to be launched at the -Wonderwool Wales Festival - at Builth Wells (held last Saturday).  During our stay we were invited in to see these wonderful dolls (sorry no photos) each county in its own variation of the national costume and each made from Welsh linen and wool with locally made porcelain heads.  We particularly liked the one from Flintshire.  Not all of them had the Lady Llanover red cloak and tall black hat.

Later my two friends and I walked up to the Craven Arms Hotel for a meal and a catching up session on what we had all been doing for the last year.

The next morning we caught the bus in to Llandod where we visited the museum and had lunch in the Metropole hotel - more of this visit in my next post.

Here are some photos of the inside of the Thomas shop museum.  The flower trimmed hat was so pretty!

The shop is filled from top to bottom with wonderful items donated by local people and these mingled with handmade produce like jam, chutney and fudge.

It was fascinating just peering at all the shelves and counter displays.  There were many more things to see since my last visit.

Lovely big jars of scented soaps. 

Pears and Fairy soap next to a shelf of Reckitt's or dolly blue and Sylvan flakes!

 Upstairs is the Wool Emporium

 There was so much to see here.  There were skeins of wool and wool kits as well as finished articles for sale.

It was warm enough on Wednesday afternoon to sit outside near the river which runs at the back of the Thomas shop before walking back to our friend's cottage for a lovely supper of fish pie follwed by fruit salad.  I'll tell you more in my next post.