Bramley Court gives residents shopping opportunity by bringing community market ‘in-house’

Bramley Court care home is giving residents an opportunity to shop by bringing a vibrant local market ‘in-house’.

Bramley Court care home is giving residents an opportunity to shop by bringing a vibrant local market ‘in-house’.

Residents love to visit Histon Country Market, held every Friday at Histon Baptist Church Hall, but because they are not all mobile enough to go, the team at the 72-bed home decided to bring the market to them.

The home, which provides high quality residential, nursing and dementia care, were treated to stalls selling baked goods, jams and preserves, knitted products, jewellery and stained glass as well as homemade bags and gift cards.

It was a particularly interesting day for 92-year-old Jerry, a former pottery teacher who enjoyed chatting to one seller about their handmade clay products.

“It was great to meet a fellow potter, I went to teacher training college and became committed to pottery – a lump of clay becomes a work of art,” said Jerry.

“You don’t need academic skills to make something beautiful. I’ve been running pottery classes for the other residents and I’m looking forward to running some more sessions.

“We may be older, but we are certainly not past it! I’m looking forward to the next market, we may be selling our own pots there!”

Stall holders were amazed with the success of the market with produce selling out and excess produce being bought by the home for the residents to enjoy.

Chair of Histon Country Market, Chris Thomas said: “We’d had some residents come down before and they really enjoyed it.

“We got talking and thought it would be a wonderful idea to hold the market at the home for those who hadn’t been able to attend. It was a lovely day and we are looking forward to going back in the future.”

Care home manager, Judith Wroe, added: “We are always looking for ways to forge strong ties with the community. We want our residents to go out but it’s also really important to have people coming in.

“Bringing in groups from the local area has amazing benefits for our residents and we can see from hosting this event that it benefitted the stall holders too.

“Some of them saw a different side to life in a care home, it changed their perception, and we love that. It couldn’t have gone any better and we are delighted that the market will become a regular fixture.”