Alastair Hendy’s Homestore in Hastings, experential retail at its best

What is it with the Hastings/Rye area that encourages such wonderful stores? Last week it was Merchant & Mills from Rye, and while there Carolyn tipped me off about Alastair Hendy’s amazing Homestore in Hastings. It was another ‘bucket of cold water’ moment.

Alastair Hendy is a food writer and photographer who moved to Hastings half a dozen years ago. Before long he’d bought a relic of a house in Hasting’s High Street and spent three years painstakingly piecing together a store with a distinctly polished Dickensian feel. It is the most gorgeous place, with dark painted and rubbed down wood panel walls, scrubbed floor boards, completely original fixtures everywhere and vintage/salvaged lighting and electric accessories. And that’s just the shop.

Tables and shelves are neatly crammed with simple but useful home product, from a huge collection of natural haired brushes, endless different scissors, every width and height of beeswax candle and cooking china to make Mary Berry swoon.

And the displays!

I can’t tell you how this store lifted my spirits and reaffirmed my thoughts that if you make the store an irresistible place, people will find you out. And a store with this standard of product presentation and selection deserves to be on its own retail coach tour, frankly speaking. The store doesn’t yet have a selling website, so if you want to experience this, you have to head down to Hastings and immerse yourself, and I urge you to do just that.

Not only is this a great store, at the weekends, Alastair cooks in the small old-school kitchen at the back of the shop and you can book a space in the teeny dining room. The kitchen opens Saturday-Sunday 12.30- 4.00pm. Don’t even think of not booking.

I bought the most excellent ceiling brush, with a 5ft long handle and goat hair bristles that has made short work of all my cobwebby cornicing.

There are three floors of beautiful product..three! There are vintage bits of furniture and accessories scattered amongst the new stuff. And all the time you are climbing the stairs you can admired the rubbed down paintwork on the stair bannister and panelled walls.

I really wanted one of everything….and I wanted to move in.

Homestore is open at 36 High Street, Hastings, Wednesday to Sunday 10.00 – 5.30pm, the website is still under construction but the blog with contact details etc is here . Go people, go soon.