As you will know, we moved into our new premises at Ship Hill during the first lockdown in July 2020. We hoped that construction work on the building would start soon after that, to transform the space into a wonderful shop, café and theatrical space, with a new floor for three Writers’ Pads to host storymaking workshops again. Unfortunately, this work has been delayed, but we are pleased to say that we are currently in the process of securing the construction contractor, and we are hopeful that the capital project work will begin within the next couple of months.
In the meantime, we had a quandary – how could we open our shop and deliver our creative workshops while the building work took place? We have been very fortunate to have been able to call on the support of our friends at Clifton Park and Gulliver’s Valley, but these options did not allow us to bring together our retail offering, our delivery to schools, and our out-of-school workshop programme in a longer-term plan.
We’ve been working very hard behind the scenes, and we are thrilled to announce that we have an agreed location where we will be popping up for the next 12 months, potentially, while work takes place at our permanent home on Ship Hill. This will keep Grimm & Co in Rotherham and enable us to be together as a team to deliver our full range of activities – you can shop with us, take books from our Forgotten Library, attend workshops and bring your school class.
Where will we be? (Drumroll…)
From December, you will be able to find us at… the Old Town Hall Rotherham!
Deborah Bullivant, Founding Chief Executive said, ‘We are over the moon to be able to open our physical shops to mortals again, we’ve missed you so much! This will mean we can all be together, the shop can show off its wonderful new products and welcome customers to our new, in-between site, whilst helping us to raise the funds for our permanent home. The creative space behind the secret door will also provide a spectacular home for our theatres and our story workshops will be back on the menu plus some new activities for families/carers of younger children too.’
Sarah Dunwell, Chair of Grimm & Co’s board said, ‘This is an exciting chapter in our story so far and we’re so pleased to be able to open up the charity’s doors once again, in a new, pop-up home in the Old Town Hall, still in the heart of Rotherham’.
The doors will open for the magical apothecary at 9am on Tuesday 21st December! You can shop with us on Tuesday (until 4pm), Wednesday (9-4pm) and Thursday (until 1pm). After that, the elves will travel North to help their cousins at the North Pole, and will be back next year!