Some shops just draw you in. Folde, at the top of iconic Gold Hill (of Hovis advertisement fame) in Shaftesbury, Dorset, is one of them. Tiny fairy lights illuminate the rustic tables and dressers, laden with books about nature, walking, wild swimming and country lore, each one more beguiling than the last.
As the soft folk music works its magic, you begin to relax, your eye alighting on the shop’s other treasures – beautiful cards and prints alongside locally made wicker baskets, hand-thrown mugs and squishy linen cushions decorated with dozing hares and inquisitive badgers. It is, as one customer has said, ‘a place where you feel you can breathe’.
Its founders, Karen Brazier and Amber Harrison, are evangelical about the power of nature to heal, and both are open…
