I visited Shropshire market town to meet a few of the soul traders who give the town its unique character

Thanks in no small part to the many traders brave enough to strike out on their own in the town, you can find things in Wellington you won’t find anywhere else.

Or so I’d been told - I’ve heard a lot about the town’s charms, but only second-hand.

So this week I decided to seek out some of the people who make Wellington what it is, to find out why they think the town is so special.

Mercy Smartt is the proud co-founder of the book-ends independent bookshop in Duke Street.

“It's a black-owned, family-owned, independent bookshop. In fact we're the only independent bookshop in Wellington, last time I checked! We're hoping to be more of a sort of community hub.

”We do live music, poetry, we now do hot drinks, coffee, really good chocolate. It’s just a place where people who love books or just like peace want to come into a serene place and just feel good. We’ve got a fantastic growing community of book lovers.”

The shop opened in the summer of 2023, and since then Mercy and husband/business partner Rich have only come to love Wellington more.

“I think Wellington is first of all a historic town, and there's a lot of people who live here who value that history and want to preserve it - but not just preserve it, also add to that story as it continues. So you've got places like the Orbit, which is kind of unusual in a small town to have an independent cinema, but it's a fantastic space.

“We've got so many great businesses like the Boardroom [Gaming Cafe], we've got Keli in the [Little Green] Pantry, and it's a place where I feel like people feel like they can actually thrive. They can come up with an idea, they can have a vision for something they want to do that's going to help the community or just going to be interesting, something that’s theirs - and they can do that.

“I feel like for us as an independent bookshop, things can be challenging at times because we're up against places like large multi-nationals that have ‘interesting’ practices that don't necessarily benefit the local people here. And I think at times like this, where there's a lot going on in the world, the power of independent businesses to actually do something that makes a difference to people who live here, our community, is massive.

“I think that's a real special element to Wellington. I think it's also the belief that people have, they have a good memory of how good things could be, that memory is still there, that desire is still there. There's that sort of gutsy, we-can-make-it-what-we-want-it-to-be thing, which is so cool, and it's good to be part of that.”

The aforementioned board game cafe the Boardroom has become a fixture in Wellington since it opened in March 2022 - and has only been more cherished since the closure of Nerdy in Shrewsbury last year.

A team from the Boardroom brought some giant games to the first ever Embers Fire Festival, held in the Ironbridge Gorge last weekend, helping promote what the cafe offers in Wellington.

Cafe manager Lyndsey Bird has been there from the beginning, and believes Wellington is so special partly because of support from local authorities.

”We've been open for four years now, and we have a selection of over a thousand board games available for people to come and play with when they're here. We provide a space for people who are a little bit nerdy and want to get to know other people and become friends.

“We get some amazing support from Wellington Town Council and the idea of that is to encourage as many independent companies into Wellington as possible. So you find things in Wellington that you will not find anywhere else. Obviously we have Boardroom Gaming Cafe, we have the Little Green Pantry, which is fantastic, the Boot [micropub] around the corner, we’ve obviously got the Wellington Orbit.

“There's lots of little things you can do, and you can spend an entire day in Wellington and see so many different things that you wouldn't see in other places.”

Mercy and Lyndsey both name-checked the Little Green Pantry, probably one of Wellington’s biggest success stories of recent years. The zero-waste business, where environmentally minded shoppers can bring in containers of practically any shape or size and have them filled with food, cleaning products or toiletries, has proven such a hit owner Keli King opened a new shop in Newport last year.

It goes to show that Wellington is full of good ideas which keep on growing.