The Abbey Stores empire is expanding with a new branch at Coombe Bissett Stores. From Saturday 12 January 2008 expect to see new stock and over time a new look and feel to this well-loved village shop in Coombe Bissett.
For more information and updates see, for now, the Abbey Stores blog and watch this space for an announcement regarding a website for Coombe Bissett Stores.
Abbey Stores now have their very own blog. You can subscribe via RSS and keep up to date with the latest delicious offerings from this fine emporium of cider, real ale and tasty food.
Link: Abbey Stores Blog
3 Fish Row
Mon – Sat 8.30am – 6pm
Sun – 10am – 4pm
A very recent addition to Salisbury is Bird and Carter Delicatessen, housed in a fine timber-frame building on Fish Row, next to Pritchetts the butchers. It is independently run by Joff Bird and Annie Carter. They offer fine chacuterie (cooked and cured meats, English and continental), cheeses, pastries, hand-made cakes, savouries such as olives, pickles, sauces and chutneys, tinned fish (including the sublime Cornish pilchards from Newlyn, Penzance), coffee and all manner of dry deli items, interesting soft drinks, and filled baguettes (beautifully, and more importantly ecologically, wrapped in a peace of food grade wax paper which is biodegradable). They also provide a small catering service. (Read the article)
This is just a quick plug to let people know that you can now order a growing selection of Abbey Stores’ finest consumables (read beer, cider, chocolates, you name it) directly from their website: http://www.abbeystores.co.uk/
If you do live in Salisbury, and can never quite find the time to physically visit the shop – did you know that they deliver for free in the local area. See? No excuses!
See Abbey Stores on Google Maps.
Harnham Road, Salisbury, SP2 8JG
I mentioned East Harnham Deli a few posts back on our walk to Odstock. Here’s a little more about it. Neatly perched just beyond Harnham bridge, it retains its original name on the shop hoarding, ‘A. Hand and Sons’. Outside are blackboards advertising the delicious wares of the deli from sweets and cakes (the best lemon drizzle cake we’ve tasted, they use real lemons and lots of them!) to homemade tarts and pasties. It sells a good selection of ‘dry’ deli foods made by decent companies including pasta, rice, cereals, tinned soup and more.
99 Park Street, Salisbury
Harrison Bros butchers are the best butchers in town. Hidden away from the main run of shops in the city centre, you will find Harrisons on the corner of College Street and Park Street (where the entrance is). As you jingle through the chain door curtain you are not greeted by a clinical high glass or perspex counter and unsure looks from teenagers doing their first job, but a proper butcher’s block, well hewn from the daily shave it gets to ensure its clean and level for the next day. You are face to face with either of the Harrison brothers and their polite countenance and attentive manner make shopping here a joy. Their meat is well-provenanced and the butchers are knowledgeable about the proper cuts needed for your recipes.
St Thomas Square, opp. St Thomas’s and St Edmund’s church
Monday – Friday – 8.30 – 5.00, Saturday – 8.00 – 5.00
Last Saturday afternoon, after a hard day’s wandering, we finally managed to go into Polly Tearooms rather than walk past wistfully. I ordered a traditional cream tea, consisting of a pot of tea (enough for at least two cups), a sizeable fruit scone (choice of fruit or plain), strawberry jam (choice of strawberry, raspberry, apricot) and clotted cream (or whipped if preferred but why would you?), while my partner-in-tea went for a cream slice (slice is far too diminuative for what it was). As you enter, you can’t stop coveting the array of beautiful cakes and confectionery to choose from: gateaux, meringues, eclairs like you’ve never seen such things. Which one? Which one shall I have?? (Read the article)
30 Salt Lane
Open Monday to Saturday – 8am – 7pm
There is so much to say about Abbey Stores that I can hardly contain myself to write properly. This has been my fourth attempt to write a review and every time it makes me so desirous to just dash down there to see what new things they might have in, that I never finish what I want to say. Abbey Stores deserves more than one review anyway so for now I shall be content in just saying a fraction of the amazing things I wanted to.
Abbey Stores is everything a good shop should be. In fact, it’s not just a good shop, it’s a magnificent emporium of first-rate food and drink and other useful household things. How is it possible that we can go in and take so long choosing which cider we want to drink and whether to go for bottled or draught take-out (choices in both) with our free-range local sausages and craft cheeses? Is it possible that we will ever get through the range of condiments, sauces and chutneys called (as it should be) Tracklements (made locally in Sherston, Wilts), or ever do without them again? (Read the article)
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