Tag: poulshot

Goodbye to The Beanery but Hollychocs Lives On

Popular award-winning artisan chocolate business Hollychocs has announced that its Beanery Café will close on Saturday 23rd August, marking exactly two years since its opening in Poulshot, near Devizes….

Founded by award-winning chocolatier Holly Garner, Hollychocs has become a much-loved fixture in the local community, known not just for its handcrafted chocolates but for creating a warm, welcoming space for chocolate lovers to connect, indulge and experience the very best chocolate in the Southwest.

“This decision hasn’t come lightly,” said Holly. “Sam and I have poured so much into the café—working long days, championing other small businesses and suppliers and welcoming thousands of people through our doors. The support from our community has meant everything.”

The closure comes amidst rising costs that have impacted many small businesses across the country. “We’ve tried everything—from constantly creating new menu offerings, to introducing special offers,” Holly added. “In the end, the increased labour costs paired with price increases across the board, have made it time to focus our energy on a future that’s sustainable for us, our chocolate, and the people behind it.”

Yet this opens a new chapter for Hollychocs. Although the café will no longer offer drop-in visits, Hollychocs will continue to host a wide range of bookable chocolate experiences from their studio just outside Devizes. These include guided tastings, chocolate-making workshops, and sit-down afternoon teas—already popular with locals and visitors alike.

Hollychocs’ full product range will also remain available for UK-wide delivery and click & collect. She’s just released a Hollychocs version of the viral sensation Dubai Bar and has plans to increase her postbox-friendly chocolate gifts which are an increasingly popular way of sending a thoughtful gift.

They will also be focusing more on Corporate Gifting and Wholesale opportunities both locally and nationally.

“We’re not going anywhere,” Holly assured. “We’re simply shifting focus—putting our efforts into the parts of the business we know can sustain us in the long term.”

The final day of trading at the Beanery Café will take place on Saturday 23rd August, and the team welcomes the community to pop in for one last drink or treat.

“We’d love to see some familiar faces before we close the doors,” said Holly. “We’re so proud of what we’ve built—and incredibly grateful to everyone in Wiltshire who’s supported us on this journey.”

Devizine wishes Holly and the team all the best with progressing this delicious brand. It’s a shame to hear about The Beanery but I believe they’ve made the sensible decision.

Trending……

Rooks; New Single From M3G

Chippenham folk singer-songwriter, M3G (because she likes a backward “E”) has a new single out tomorrow, Friday 19th December. Put your jingly bell cheesy tunes…

Keep reading

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Meet Henry, the Hollychocs’ Chocolate Duck Helping Cystic Fibrosis

Poulshot’s Award-winning chocolate studio Hollychocs is proud to launch a heartfelt charity campaign in support of the Cystic Fibrosis Trust UK, with a charming chocolate duck leading the way…..

The star of the campaign is Henry Duck – a handmade chocolate duck crafted from Hollychocs’ signature 45% cocoa milk chocolate and decorated in yellow and gold cocoa butter, in tribute to Cystic Fibrosis Awareness.

For every Henry Duck sold, £1 will be donated to the Cystic Fibrosis Trust UK, helping fund vital research and provide life-changing support to families across the UK.

“Our family has seen the impact of cystic fibrosis firsthand,” says Holly Garner, chocolatier and founder of Hollychocs. “Henry is named after my nephew, and this campaign coincides with their “Wear It Yellow” campaign and is our way of giving something back while sharing a little joy through chocolate.”

Awl, look at him. I’m quackers about Henry!

To add to the fun, every purchase in her Beanery Café and Chocolate Shop between Thursday 13 and Saturday 15 June will come with a free, numbered mini duck. One lucky mini duck number will win a full-size Henry Duck!

Customers can treat themselves to Holly’s limited-edition Henry Duck Sundae, an indulgent dessert of half a Henry Duck filled with vanilla gelato, and topped with her award-winning honeycomb and lava salted caramel sauce. As with the Henry Duck, £1 from every sundae goes to the Cystic Fibrosis Trust.

Customers can take part by purchasing a Henry Duck online or in store, stopping by The Beanery Café in Poulshot (Thu–Sat, 10am–5pm) for the special sundae, along with all their other delicious treats, or by entering the mini duck giveaway with each purchase in the café & chocolate shop

“Henry Duck is a small treat that makes a big impact,” Holly adds. “Whether you’re indulging yourself, treating a friend, or visiting our café, you’re helping support families like ours—and being part of something bigger.”

About Hollychocs:


Founded by award-winning chocolatier and chocolate engineer Holly Garner, Hollychocs produces ethically sourced, handcrafted chocolates in small batches from their Wiltshire studio. Known for blending scientific precision with flavour-led creativity, the business has earned multiple accolades, including Great Taste Awards and the title of Southwest’s Chocolate Champion.


About Cystic Fibrosis Trust:


The Cystic Fibrosis Trust is the UK’s leading charity for those affected by cystic fibrosis. Through research, advocacy, and frontline support, the Trust is working to ensure a brighter future for everyone living with the condition.

Hollychocs Chocolate Experiences for Autumn & Christmas Released

I can’t believe it’s been the best part of six months since my son and I’s half term chocolate making workshop at Hollychocs in Poulshot, it was so much fun and I was as excited as little Charlie Bucket! Holly has released their new program of events, their Hollychocs Experiences for the Autumn & Christmas period….

From their signature Hollychocs Experiences, to masterclasses, delicious tasting events and family friendly fun at Halloween, a Spooktacular Chocolate Experience for all ages, and two types of workshops for Christmas; there’s something for everyone.

Their first ever Christmas Tasting Evening sold out quickly last year so they’ve added two more dates to come and try before you buy, but you’ll still need to be quick, spaces are limited, this is not a Willy Wonka sized factory!

In addition to their program, which you can find here, Hollychocs has a taster session in conjunction with the Devizes Food & Drink Festival on Monday 23rd of September, which you can find here. 

These experiences are a fantastic way to learn all about the world of craft chocolate, try a new skill and they make the perfect gift for birthdays and Christmas. Find my account of the experience at a family chocolate making workshop, here. But really, if I type the word chocolate one more time…….!!

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Potterne Vicar Faces Soaking “Baptism!”

by Geoff Baker

It’s going to be a wet weekend whatever the weather for Wiltshire rector Gerry Lynch – as he’s volunteered for a soaking at the Potterne village fete on Saturday June 1st…..

It will be the first church fete for Gerry since he was inducted in January as the new Rector of the Wellsprings Benefice, which covers the parishes of Potterne, Poulshot, Seend, Worton and Bulkington, and he is hoping to make a splash as the star of the Soak The Vicar sideshow.

Gerry is aiming to raise funds for the community and the village’s St. Mary’s Church by inviting fete-goers to throw wet sponges at him at the afternoon event and he’s putting a brave face on his “baptism”.

“I’m game for a bit of ritual humiliation as it’s all in aid of a good cause,” said Gerry, for whom the weathermen are forecasting a warm day with sunny intervals.

Potterne fete’s wet sponge sideshow will be child’s play. Image: Jill Newton.

Organisers have made the wet sponge stall double-sided so that children can have fun soaking their dads while Gerry takes a break to be towelled down.

“You can soak the vicar, soak your dad or soak your husband and we think that last option may be popular with a lot of wives,” said a fete spokesman.

The fete, at Little Mill Field, Mill Road, Potterne [SN10 5ND], will run from 1pm to 4pm and will also feature the popular plastic duck races in the adjoining stream, a dog show, barbecue, licensed bar, tea and cakes, a bottle tombola, a luxury food hamper draw and a variety of other stalls, games and sideshows.

Potterne Rector the Rev. Gerry Lynch prepares to get drenched at the village fete. Image: Jill Newton.

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Darren and The Chocolate Factory; A Family Workshop at Hollychocs!

If I’ve been feeling as excited as little Charlie Bucket all week, I’ll justify why. On Friday my son and I had a chocolate adventure of our own, and while no one fell into a chocolate river or blew up into a giant snozzberry, we had fun at Hollychocs in Poulshot, returned with lots of goodies made with our own hand, and decidedly more enlightened to the art of the chocolaterie…..

It was a birthday present for my ever-growing Oompa Loompa, rather than a recipe for an article, but this half term chocolate making workshop was so fun I feel inclined to mention it anyway!

Holly Garner opened this successful business five years ago, and while she’s yet to install a glass elevator, Hollychocs has won awards and expanded to a café known as The Beanery. It’s the ideal space for hosting homey workshops, and there’s plenty to choose from for all ages. We’re here for a family-friendly course; I made enough mess with this one let alone something more technical!

Let’s be honest here, these workshops come at a price, but you certainly get what you pay for, especially if you love chocolate, and if we’re being honest, who doesn’t? Personally I’m as passionate about eating the stuff as Holly is with making it. If stuffing chocolate into a cakehole was a competitive sport, I reckon I’d be up for an Olympic gold medal; a chocolate coin medal, here’s hoping!

Holly’s enthusiasm and passion for her art is exemplified at such events. As her assistant provided us all with delicious hot chocolates, Holly introduced herself with a little background, including her roots as “the queen of caramel” at Cadburys; there has to be a parody of a Billy Ocean song in this, Caramel Queen, now we’re sharing the same dream? No? Maybe? Just me then!

And it was a dream come true. A detailed and educational five minutes kicked it off, explaining the journey from cocoa pod to chocolate liquor, and to your belly, with the use of a mock pod prop. Several example chocolate buttons of various strengths were handed out to try, including ruby chocolate, something you won’t find mass produced because of a lesser shelf life. 

We were told their country of origin, facts about fair trade agreements, and after the brief but informative lesson, we were given the raw liquor and double cream to mix ourselves. Needless to say, I was getting a smidgen overexcited at this point!

Starting easy, we made chocolate lollipops and decorated them, followed by a chocolate bar and onto the grand finale, chocolate truffles. The kids all had fun, the parents had more. Some of the treats we made, like leftover buttons, mysteriously went missing before leaving the factory floor, the rest were neatly bagged to take home.

Like a right cheeky Wonka, I even ate the letters of my nametag, which Holly inscribed on our paper base with, yeah, you guessed it, chocolate! From now on, in chocolate language, I’m known as just “ren!”

I wondered if when Holly gets home after her working day, she just craves a packet of crisps, but one thing is for sure, she made techniques in chocolate engineering look simple, when it wasn’t so, and things got sticky; scrummy fun for all the family.

Cadburys, and I’m sure other sweetie factories too, may have their own theme-park-fashioned activities, where you’re a face in an overcrowded commercial queue. At Hollychocs, just down the road, you’re treated to the personal touch, not to mention her divine handcrafted and unique chocolates.

I can’t tell you anymore about it then this, who do you take me for, Slugworth? You’ll have to find out for yourselves!

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Chatting With Burn The Midnight Oil

It’s nice to hear when our features attract attention. Salisbury’s Radio Odstock  picked up on our interview with Devizes band Burn the Midnight Oil and…

The Lost Trades Float on New Single

I’ve got some gorgeous vocal harmonies currently floating into my ears, as The Lost Trades release their first single since the replacement of Tamsin Quin…

Planks Dairies Introduces Locally Sourced Organic Dairy Range

Now, I know what you’re asking; aren’t you in someway affiliated with Planks’ Dairies, in which case isn’t this a shameless advertorial? Yes, and no, respectively. The historical truth behind the former is next-door neighbours would knock at my door when I was knee-high to a grasshopper, to return our half-filled milk bottles, which I took from our own fridge and delivered to their doors in want to be a milkman! And now, well, ask me again when it’s snowing for a slightly differing opinion, but I’m living the dream!

The answer to the latter is not really, no, you get paid for advertorials, I’m doing it out of the kindness of my heart, the circulation of news and the slim possibility they’ll chuck a yogurt at me, most likely at the head!

If Planks have been delivering milk and products around the area since 1936, you’d be fooled into thinking nothing has changed. Agreeably not much has changed, and they pride themselves in upholding the traditional door-to-door milk delivery services, which is something of an obscurity in other areas of the UK. So much so, tourists tend to take photos when the milk-floats pass through town, and I’m likely having a bad hair day!

However, just like the eighties when Stewart Plank introduced the electric fleet we know, love and occasionally get stuck behind today, times are changing at the legendary dairy. Hold the front page, we have a website! Click here, if you don’t believe such an oddity is possible!

But the really great news is, in line with current trends, a new, locally sourced from Berkley Farm in Wroughton, organic range is heading our way. Delivered to your door in larger, returnable glass bottles, as is the sustainable living ethos Planks adopt, what with electric milk-floats and all, organic milk has never been this good; you don’t even have to change out of your jimmy-jams!

Other than the PJs part, there are many benefits to buying organic, including higher levels of omega 3 fatty acids and CLA, more antioxidants, and more vitamins than regular milk. We’ve even got organic, or regular milkshakes. There’s a half price offer on your first order of the new organic range, whether you are a new customer or just changing your regular order.

The delivery areas are Devizes, Melksham, Corsham, and Pewsey, and most surrounding villages from Poulshot, Potterne, Rowde, All Cannings, Urchfont, Chirton, Woodborough, Wilcot, Seend Cleeve, Bromham, Box, Colerne, Easterton Market Lavington, Great Cheverell and many others.

By the way, as well as soya and lactose free milk, bread, butter, eggs, yogurts, juices (including a fine bottle of a’Becketts apple juice), seasonal potatoes, and yes, those broken biscuits you used to love as a kid, can be delivered too!

And that’s it, contact the dairy-ologists and you’re one step closer to opening your door in the morning to find milk on the step, the way it has always been, prior to supermarkets undercutting dairy farmers, and the way it will continue at Planks. There’s nothing more for me to say, other than perhaps a milkman joke; why don’t cows wear flip-flops?

Because they lack-toes!

Okay, I’ll get my coat….

Brownie Dad in the Ring!

Yay, happy Father’s Day, Dads, we are number one, so why try harder?!

Received a photo-card from my son of my good self proudly showing off my moobs, and my daughter got me a fit-watch thingy to measure my steps, heart rate and all of that malarkey; a smidgen suspicious they’re trying to tell me something. Yet, by way of a complete turnaround, I’ve also bagged myself a box of brownies from the Gourmet Brownie Kitchen in Poulshot and now I’m staring at my fit-watch, eagerly awaiting brownie o’clock to come….

…. hold on…. Yeah, oh, mmmm, nice, yeah baby; these are the kiddy! I rest my case. Take this as my specialised technical food review; who do I look like, Mary Berry?

Now the deed is done. Amazingly, I did twenty-six steps going to the kitchen to get the brownies! It was worth the effort though, probably worth it if my kitchen was located on top of Mount Etna. Cos, like, cakes have trends, don’t they? A year or so ago it was all cup cakes this and cup cakes that; all in the icing and fancy decoration. Don’t get me wrong, nothing against the cup cake, but brownies are the new top dog, all the fancy ornamental stuff and icing begone, simple, stodgy little blessings they are, those brownies. Though, there was a variety in the box, particularly standing out visually was the fudge one with marshmallows and covered in white chocolate. I couldn’t single any out though, for all their subtle differences, I loved them all with impartiality and equality!

I tried my hand at baking them once upon a time, bought a tray especially, but they came out like squares of chocolate sponge a six-year old might make.

What’s the secret in making those beauties stodgy and so utterly gorgeous? I don’t know, put a book on them like pressed flowers? Ah, I don’t need Google, I don’t need to know, really. Jodie Perkins knows, might well be her secret, and that’s good enough; leave the brownie-making to the experts. I’m only professional in the eating part and telling you, because I know a good brownie when I taste a good brownie, and the brownies at The Gourmet Brownie Kitchen are somewhere between a brownie paradise and brownie heaven; about halfway.

Jodie founded the business in 2013 and in June last year she opened her shop at the Poulshot Lodge, which is a double-whammy as I picked myself up some wicked ribeye steaks while I was there! Now she’s shipping these beauties out nationally. Jodie makes cakes for celebrations, she offers vegan and gluten-free options, and she has a website for orders, you don’t need to wait for the next Father’s Day; any day should be a brownie day.