Our story…
St Mary Bourne is a busy and thriving village. At its heart lies The George Inn, the Village Hall and the Village Shop and Post Office. While all three of these amenities provide good services to the village we decided that the addition of a Community Café would enhance the village services further, by offering a space where people could meet, chat and gather information about events and other organisations in the local area. Whilst the old shop served us well for the last 20 years, with the help of the wider community support, we have transformed the space into a wonderful, cosy, rustic shop & cafe that we are all immensely proud of.
As well as this, there is an ever-growing crusade on plastic waste which has been spearheaded by celebrities such as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and David Attenborough. This has created a demand for zero waste shopping whereby customers can use their own containers to fill up on day-to-day products such as dried food goods and household cleaning products. The Boundary is ideally placed in the Bourne Valley to fill this gap in the market and provide our community with the ability to change our shopping habits to help protect the environment, so we have built our own eco refillable section in the shop for all to use.
Not only has the shop offering improved we now have our wonderful café which serves homemade cakes, delicious coffee, hot drinks and light snacks. The café is now a fantastic community hub where people of all ages from the community can enjoy the views of the recreational ground whilst nattering away with their friends and family.
Exterior Design
Designed by a local architect the shop & cafe has one extension that has expanded out to the front as well as a wrap-around extension to the right and back of the existing shop. The entrance now has a new covered walkway for those rainy days. And when the weather picks up again we will be building a dedicated area outside the back that will provide outdoor seating for those sunny days with a lovely view of the recreation ground!
The Boundary is open seven days a week and offers the services of the Post Office and dry cleaning as well as the cafe. Fresh fruit and vegetables are delivered every Monday, Wednesday and Friday and fresh milk and cream arrives daily. We also sell newspapers and magazines as well as an extensive range of groceries including beer, wine and spirits; chilled and frozen food; fresh bread and freshly baked cakes, soft drinks, ice creams, teas and freshly ground coffee. The cafe is is also open 7 days a week, serving delicious cakes, light lunches, and hot drinks to go, but the kitchen is closed for lunch on Mondays.
The Boundary is a proud member of Hampshire Fare and stocks a wide range of local food from fantastic producers. These include Greenfield Pork; Oaktrack Smallholding Lamb and Beef; Bere Mill Butchery: Beckys Beezz Honey; Summerdown Mint Tea and Chocolates; Wessex Mill Flour; River Test Distillery Gin;The Little Bakery Bread; Beechwood Farm Eggs; Bourne Valley Pick Your Own Fruit and Veg and Bee Friendly Plants.
At the heart of our community shop and cafe, is our wonderful group of volunteers. They range in age from teens to eighties, and generoulsy give a little time each week to help us out, either behind the till, stacking shelves, in the kitchen or in the cafe. We are always looking for more volunteers to join the team, so please get in touch if you fancy getting out and meeting the local community.
How The Boundary came into being!
The village shop had previously traded for 20 years as a community interest company but in order to raise funds for the project through a community share offer, the company converted to a community benefit society. The Society was registered on 5 April 2022 and the first Management Committee steered the Society through the raising of the finance for the project and the completion of the build and equipping of the extended and improved premises. The Society trades as “The Boundary”. A community benefit society is a member-owned organisation that seeks to provide benefits for the community and membership is at the heart of the enterprise. If you would like to have a say in how The Boundary is run and to benefit from its success, why not become a member?
Get Involved in our Community Shop and Cafe
Become a Volunteer!
We would love you to join our friendly team.
Call us, email or just pop into the shop to find out more!
Become a Member!
You can still purchase shares and become a member of the Community Benefit Society.