Three independent businesses have joined Halls of Ripon following a major refurbishment of the city centre department store.
Ripon Music Services and Nell Emanuel's home décor business have both taken space at the Fishergate store, while artist Tracey Ward is now exhibiting and selling her original paintings there.
They join a growing collection of independent businesses at Halls, which also welcomed health food outlet Sustain earlier this year.
Ripon Music Services is run by professional guitarist Mark Farrow, who has moved from Essex to establish his new venture in the city.
Mark has spent 37 years as a professional musician, playing thousands of gigs across the UK, Europe and Dubai.
He now specialises in servicing and setting up stringed instruments, ranging from banjos to bass guitars.
Mark said:
“I previously owned and ran a large music store on the North East Essex coast for three years and thought it was time for a change, so I headed north and was delighted when I found this space alongside a range of other independent businesses who offer something special for their customers.”
He added:
“Ripon is a very appealing place to be because of its history and heritage and I think there’s a good opportunity here to carve out a niche for a specialist business like mine.”
The new arrivals follow an extensive £400,000 refurbishment of the Halls building by Ripon-based Sterne Properties Limited.
The work has allowed better use of the building, including the creation of secure lock-up cabinets where independent businesses can display and sell their goods.
Barry Cooper, director of Halls of Ripon, said:
“We’re delighted to be able to provide premium spaces here in Fishergate for Nell, Tracey and Mark, to showcase their services and goods.
“Their arrival adds to the diversity of our overall offer in a year that has proved eventful, with the opening of Sustain, and the discovery of a Medieval well that is now an attention-grabbing feature on the new terraced area at our Marshall Way entrance.”
Ripon BID manager Lilla Bathurst said Mark's decision to relocate to the city demonstrated Ripon's appeal to independent businesses.
She said:
“When guitarist and professional musician Mark Farrow, who has lived and worked at a number of places around the world, said he moved from Essex to set up his new venture in our city, it speaks volumes about the attractiveness of Ripon to independent businesses.
“It’s also a feather in the cap of Halls’ father-and-son team Mike and Barry Cooper for the way that in the post-Covid period, they have attracted a number of fledgling enterprises and helped them to fly.”
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