Growing up, siblings Laura Drew and Josh Jenkins were regular visitors to Barnard Castle’s toy shop run by the Connelly family situated on The Bank. They share many fond memories of the place.
Last week, after months of planning and renovation they opened the doors to their very own emporium, Teesdale Toys, where they aim to provide generations of children with memories similar to their own.
Laura said: “We grew up on The Bank and we used to be in and out of here all the time when we were kids. We saw that Pauline [Connelly] was selling the shop and we thought it would be a shame if it closed for good.”
The idea to purchase the premises themselves and run their own toy emporium came about during a meal with family at Babul’s.
She added: “We were with our dad and other brother and talking about the shop. By the end of the meal, we’d kicked around ideas and put together a skeleton business plan – well, draft idea.”
Josh said: “It had already gone under offer with someone else and we thought ‘ah we’ve missed our opportunity’, but then the property came back on the market.”
The sale finally went through in the autumn and while initially they had hoped to reopen before Christmas, renovations took longer than expected.
Laura said: “We did a soft opening on Saturday, and we will be doing a proper opening before Easter when we will have our sign up and we’ll be doing a few different competitions for it.
Teesdale Toys is stocking toys to suit children from birth to 13 and 14 years old, that will stand the test of time and that children will want to play with over and over.
She added: “My background is in legal IT and for the last ten years I have been working in football and Josh works in web development. But I know what has worked for my three kids and the toys they go back to again and again.
“Toys are expensive these days, but not if you can get years of play out them. A lot of our ranges are very durable such as Orchard and Make Do.
“We are also stocking books that you won’t find anywhere else in Barney.
“We are trying to focus on toys that you wouldn’t find anywhere else on the high street or online – unless you know where to look for them – and focusing on UK suppliers.”
The brother and sister are also keen to point out they have a wide range of wooden farming toys. And toys stocked in the shop come with an added bonus – most ranges have been tried and tested by Laura’s own children – Nathaniel ten, Corinne 7, and Cleo 4.
She added: “It’s great because we’ve had customers in asking about toys and I can say what they do and what my kids thought of them.”
Teesdale Toys will be open seven days a week: 9am until 5pm Monday through to Saturday, 10am until 4pm on Sunday.
Laura said: “For the moment we’re opening seven days a week.
“It’s exciting times and we do have big plans for the back rooms as well. Once we have some money back in, we plan on turning them into a board gaming club where we could have Pokémon card swaps for kids and a place for adults to play board games because between the two of us we have hundreds of games.”
