Within days of new gift shop Escape opening on Well Street, the building was covered in scaffolding, as just one of several frontages with a recent similar affliction.Indeed, Escape opened one year, one month and one day after the closure of its predecessor, the dress agency Pass it On. You may recall that Pass it On spent a good deal of its some 30 years above what is now the Ruthin Tandoori, Wynnstay Road, but then was Grosvenor grocers.
Back to Escape. The proprietors used to run a similar gift shop, Twenty-3, opposite. Unless I missed something, I’m sure we were led to believe that Twenty-3, which closed immediately after Christmas, was to re-open as a re-formed business, re-named Choo Choo. Choo Choo indeed re-opened, on 29 January 2010, taking a slightly different tack to Twenty-3, still selling what I might call upmarket designer gifts but with fewer items of small furniture, choosing instead high-end, luxury soaps and lotions otherwise the preserve of Cerrig & the Green Lady, St Peter’s Square.
It was immediately obvious that Choo Choo had no connection with Twenty-3. Now, Choo Choo has a competitor in Escape. This is good news and bad. A former empty unit now trading is good news, as is the greater choice of the unusual and interesting in giftware. Both are the sort of shop Rhuthun needs to attract visitors, marking the town out as something different to the country’s homogenised high streets… but the simple fact is, can the town sustain both emporia? Let us hope so.
One problem for Escape is that, with its small, high windows, it doesn’t have a very visible presence on Well Street. And gift shops need a decent shop window. Not that Choo Choo is that much better, its (larger) main window also being high. Choo Choo does have the benefit of a better frontage and entrance just inside Castle Court.
There are a number of Rhuthun traders with similarly obscure frontages, includes Blossom’s beauty parlour, Well Street (currently subject to seeking planning permission for its continuation). Then there’s dress agency Elysium Sustainable Clothing, Clwyd Street, that opened over the summer as an indirect replacement for Pass it On. Its Upper Clwyd Street frontage is larger but most will pass its smaller Clwyd Street frontage. A bit like Escape, Elysium is a hidden gem that is internally well appointed.
Similarly are Edenbloom, Well Street plus Fineline, Clwyd Street. Not only does Fineline have an obscure front, it has a huge obscure door without glass. The door, when closed, is rich and attractive. In fact, the door can be a bit of a safety issue, as you can get caught behind it in the shop as someone barges through.
Finally, talking of scaffolding, this month the Midland HSBC Bank’s being externally refurbished. This must also be good news, provided the HSBC doesn’t do to the outside what it a did few years ago within: vandalise an old fashioned, wood-rich, older-style bank interior by replacing it with “modern”, anonymous glass and steel.
The scaffolding covering the former Carpedi Rhuthun Carpets was taken down this week.
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Shops