Shipston butcher business hopes to open next month
A COUPLE taking over a butcher’s shop in Shipston hope to have it up and running next month.
Tom Richardson-Hill and his fiancé Milly Horwood, who are moving from London, have signed the lease on the High Street store.
Tom, who has 15 years’ experience in butchery, trained at high-end butcher Allens of Mayfair before moving on to Godfrey’s in Highbury.
He believes not too much work needs to be done to the Shipston unit before they can throw open the doors to customers.
He said: “We need to make a few changes to the interior but the bones of it are good.”
The business, Richardson-Hill’s, will operate as a whole-carcass butchers, selling only free-range meat and making their own sausages, pies.
He also takes the skin off pig to use for scratchings, then render the fat and use the lard in pastry and cakes.
Hands of pork are minced and used to make sausages and pork pies, while the lungs, heart, liver, and kidneys with minced meat can be fashioned into faggots.
The aim is to waste as little as possible, which is how Tom has always worked.
The 35-year-old has been looking for suitable premises outside London to start his own business for a while and Warwickshire was always top of the list, as it’s where Milly, 32, grew up.
Milly, who will co-own and run the business, also has years of experience running pubs and restaurants and she and Tom have been working together managing a butcher’s.
In London, Tom teamed up with two friends, a chef and a restauranteur, and the three successfully ran outlets that operated as high-end butchers in the day but transformed into meat-focused restaurants after 7pm.
But Tom said there are no plans to run a restaurant in the evenings, at least not for a while.
He said: “We might do something like that eventually but there’s going to be a lot of stuff to do just setting up our butcher’s shop.”
Moving with the pair is their faithful dog, Bruce, who weighs in at a hefty 60 kg and pretty much lives on fresh meat.
Tom added: “We are really looking forward to it, we think it’s going to be great.
We have already spoken to many of the other shop owners and managers and they’re all very friendly and seem keen to have us open there.
“We’re looking forward to getting stuck in.”
