After over 30 years’ trading on the High Street in Wimborne, The Square Corner is to close its doors for the last time at the end of January.
Owners Graham and Katrina have run the shop for over four years and are blaming increasing costs and decreasing footfall in the town: “The problems started the day the works to pedestrianise the square commenced. Many people chose to shop elsewhere during the works and then never came back to the town again as the free parking in the square had gone. In addition, increasing costs, coupled with more people doing Internet shopping and banking, mean there are fewer and fewer people in town. A shop like ours relies upon people passing by and noticing an unusual gift or remembering they need a birthday card and popping in, but people are just not in town as much now. It has been a real struggle to keep going as long as we have but with the lease coming up for renewal at a much higher rent, we’ve had to take the difficult decision to close.”
The shop has had various guises over the years. In the early part of the last century it was Seymours the chemist; after that it was Boots, and by the early 1980s it was The Square Corner.
Graham added, “One of the reasons people like the town is that it does have good independent shops: where else is there an independent bookshop, greengrocer, record shop, butcher and plethora of gift shops? But it is those interesting small shops that are being squeezed the most as the chains are keen to move in causing rents to increase.”
The Square Corner closing-down sale has already started with everything reduced: cards, gifts, chocolate, jewellery and cake decorations.
Graham and Katrina said, “We’d like to take this opportunity to thank all those customers who have supported us over the years. Please do come and buy up our stock as we need to sell everything.”
