Expanding Bridgnorth shop moves above cellar where owner started out
A Bridgnorth business' success story has seen a clothing shop move into the unit above the former cellar where the owner started.
Urban Angel began 16 years ago when Cara Hickman started selling shoes and handbags in a cellar beneath a popular Bridgnorth gift shop.
Expansion saw the opening of a High Street store soon afterwards, but now the clothing and homeware shop has returned to its roots by taking over the entire unit where Cara used to rent out just the cellar.
"When I started playing at shops, as I like to call it, I rented a cellar at 29 High Street and started selling shoes and handbags," recalled Cara, who says she had been a stay at home mum for ten years before starting the business.
"I only started it because at the time I though that there wasn't anywhere decent in Bridgnorth to buy shoes from'," she added.
She eventually opened a shop on 12 High Street, but after continued success found that had became too small for Urban Angel.
She said: "We moved to selling ladies wear and it has been going really well. We went from employing two staff members to nine, inlcuding my daughter Ruby who is 16 this year and who comes in every Saturday."
But she added that it became clear that number 12 High Street was not big enough any more and she began the hunt for new premises, but did not have to look far.
Late last year, when Cara heard gift shop Tea and Roses above the former cellar where she used to work was leaving, she approached the landlord with an eye to relocate down the road.
"I've come full circle, but the new shop is so much bigger," Cara said. "We must have 8-10 times the space of our previous unit, which has allowed us to start selling coffee in Pelucci's at the back, which is going really well.
"We have been so lucky. I think what has really made a difference is that we are in the lovely town of Bridgnorth, which is wonderful to trade from, and now we have so much more space we can sell so many more lines."
