How Port Sunlight's historic stables have been brought back to life

Port Sunlight’s historic stables, which once played a key role in village life, have been transformed by two local businesswomen into a new shop, café and creative space.

The red brick building in Port Sunlight previously housed horses used by Lever Brothers to pull carts and carriages, as well as village fire engines.

Now it’s home to Cobble and Hay, designed to cater as much for residents as the hundreds of thousands of visitors who come to Port Sunlight each year.

Bala Croman, owner of The Chocolate Cellar, and beekeeper Helen Parkinson who runs Sunlight Bees, joined forces after the Village Trust invited people to submit plans for the stables in July last year.

Bala explains:

“Helen and myself both live in Port Sunlight, we’ve done a couple of collaborations before, and we’re both part of the community groups.

“When the Village Trust put out an appeal for bids on the stables we thought it looked interesting, so we put our heads together and came up with this massive proposal, based on residents’ suggestions and surveys done on what people want.

“The first thing everyone said they’d like to see was a village shop selling milk!

“We also talked to coach trips and people coming in on the cruise ships, then we brought all our ideas into one huge plan and pitched it to the trust.”

Bala and Helen’s bid was successful and they picked up the keys to the stables in November.

“We believe the building dates back to around 1894, and it had been painted over and boarded up, so it wasn’t in the best state of repair,” says Bala.

“Its most recent use was as the old Unilever discount shop, selling products originally to staff and then later open to the public, but it was closed about eight years ago and had been neglected since then.”

Determined to restore the stables as respectfully as possible, Bala and Helen enlisted the help of volunteers in a major clean-up operation.

“We’ve had students from Wirral Met on work experience and a lot of local volunteers who’ve really supported us. Over 1,200 volunteer hours have gone into the refurbishment so it’s been a real community project.

“We discovered lots of different features inside, sandstone, wood, and when we stripped off layers of paint we found some tiles too. There’s brickwork which shows where the windows were, and in the tiles there are little breaks where the stalls for the horses would have been.

“Using archives and photos, we’ve tried to recreate the original layout so for instance where we’ve set up the village shop, that’s divided from our café with half a wall and balustrades so it looks like a horse stall.”

The pair intend to develop Cobble and Hay in phases, launching with the shop, a café run by chef Sean Paul and Bala’s chocolate room.

A kitchen will come next, allowing them to serve full meals, and a bakery overseen by Cobble and Hay’s in-house baker Monica.

They also have plans to convert the upper level, which was the old hayloft, into an events space.

Bala says the main thing is to bring the stables back to life and make them a much-loved addition to the village.

“The shop has basics like milk, eggs, toilet rolls, biscuits and tins, everyday convenience items, and we’ve got lots of independent suppliers so there’s lovely snacks too.

“We have a lot of tourists in Port Sunlight as well so we wanted to be able to give the local community what it wants but also have those luxury treats.

“The process of the restoration has been quite intense but we’re taking it step by step, we’ve put our heart and soul into it, and it’s been really touching to see people’s reaction.”