Sadly, Finstock’s community-run village shop closed in May 2023. Here is an article by the shop association’s last director, Rod, which appeared in the August 2023 edition of the Finstock News.

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At the end of May, we pulled down the blinds on the shop for the very last time. The death of a village institution came with a sense of both sadness and inevitability.  Yet every funeral needs a good wake, and so on Tuesday 6th June, we opened the doors again to a throng of folks who have contributed to its role in serving our community over so many years.  Directors past and present, including Jenifer Wates, the original chair; suppliers, volunteers and valued customers all came together to celebrate the triumph of nearly twenty years of being there for Finstock and the surrounding villages.  We remembered old faces, the constant feeling of crisis in trying to build trade and marshal enough volunteers to open as long as we could, but most importantly, the sense of friendship associated with this focal point on School Road.  And, of course, we paid tribute to Karen Williams, who has personified everything that’s good about serving our community. The barn is empty now, gutted of fixtures and fittings, cleaned, ready to be handed back to [the building’s owners] Ed and Chloe, whose generosity allowed us to operate rent free for so long.  The benches and picnic table have been handed over to the Parish Council to be moved to another site within the village, the chillers and other equipment will be used by the Village Hall and Finstock Community Projects at events such as summer’s Finstock Festival.  In years to come, generations will not know what it was like to have the shop at our heart.  But we shall remember.

Rod Ireland

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Located in Crown Barn (a small converted building once part of the former Crown pub buildings, at the Charlbury entrance to the village), the village shop & post office was run by the local community and served not only Finstock but also Wilcote, Fawler and Ramsden. Before its existence, Finstock once had its own Spar (on School Road), and long before that, a tiny post office in “Sunnyside”, the small cottage next to the former Wesleyan chapel by the junction of Well Hill and High Street.

Could Finstock have a shop again? It may appear that online shopping has replaced the village shop trip, but several neighbouring villages still sustain their own shops, and a shop’s role as the hub of a village community is irreplaceable. There was great sadness in the community at the closure of ours (and the loss of our Post Office, which is very unlikely to be reinstated even if a shop were to reemerge in future). Perhaps other shops have larger user bases; perhaps they are able to open later in the evenings and on weekends… perhaps they can diversify. Perhaps we can persuade Guy at the Plough to adopt the Irish model and run a ‘Pub and Shop”…?