Community Shop


In the early 1900's Henham had a quite a number of shops and at least four public houses. In common with many other villages in the area and indeed throughout the country, changes in mobility, work and life styles in the following century changed the nature of the village and by 1998 one shop and one public house remained.
	In May 1998, the announcement was made that our last shop in the village, a general store and post office was due to close because it was failing as a viable concern. After being completely run down from June, it finally closed its doors on 21st September 1998.
The village was faced with the decision that unless we helped ourselves, an important part of village life would disappear for good.
Today in 2005 we have a thriving shop and post office run by volunteers from the Henham community. The majority of the credit for this happening must go to the people of Henham themselves and a few in particular.
An arrangement was made with the Post Office to keep our post office open in the mornings and thankfully a volunteer came forward who was willing to train and run that side of the concern, which for business purposes is a separate entity. Whilst so far the enterprise must be considered a great success, an ongoing problem is to keep the list of volunteers at a suitable level. As to be expected, people's circumstances are constantly changing and it has proved difficult to find villagers who are willing to commit themselves to regular duty slots and to be reserves. Often, we have to rely on a small nucleus to keep the shop running during holiday times and in emergencies. On the plus side, the shop has already won two awards, viz. finalist in the Cambridge Evening News Community Challenge Awards and runner up in the Village Ventures Competition. After more than five years trading there is confidence that the shop will continue to thrive. We have repaid our original loans and in November 2001 we had sufficient funds to relay the floor. If you wish to know more, click here for an account written by Barry Tate on how the shop was saved.