IN THE book of Mabinogion, a series of Folk Tales, it is said that King Arthur’s favorite court was Caerleon.

On the High Street, the entry to the arts and crafts centre of Ffwrrwm is through an historic arch fronting the main street where it consists an art gallery, a restaurant and a series of shops.

One of those shops, The Spirit of Awen opened on the 1st April 2018 where after changing hands with his friend Alec Hinch, Alun Evans, 59, having known this shop for 20 years explained how he much he is enjoying it, “I just love being here.” He said cheerfully. “This place is such a peaceful tranquil spiritual place, it’s just wonderful to sit in this place and enjoy the atmosphere and often meet many friends, the customers end up being friends as well as customers.”

“I get people asking me advice on various things, the crystals and you get people looking for unusual books on spirituality, I do my best to accommodate them and people just looking for the unusual gift as well.”

Next door you’ll find The Cwtch which is run by four to five people and has been open for the last three years, Louise Horton who works in the shop in exchange for selling her art says that the place has a community feeling about it.

“Apart from selling gifts and paint, we are part of the community that offers people a place to go and have a chat if you feel lonely.”

"The main thing is everyone who comes into the shop usually says this is different. I like coming here because it is different. It’s not just the products which are different it’s the whole atmosphere really.” Added Horton.

“It’s a very calm relaxed environment we’ve got 100% knowledge of everything we sell. We sell products made by local people, artisans, crafters, jewellery makers, silversmiths, leather workers, woodcrafters and we also sell crafts from Nepal and India. That’s the aim, Fairtrade. We buy gifts from companies which aren’t huge either, so they could be a small business as well. We are buying from a small business into our small business.”

As you walk out of Ffwrrwm, you are spoiled by choice by the shops on offer and on the right you have the hairdressing salon, Burlesque. Established in 1983, three salons have soon followed, with the High Street outfit opening in 2001 and manager Emma Cavill talked about how their organisation stood out from the rest.

“It’s a lovely little village we used to work in the shop a couple doors down but then we expanded. We wanted to change the look. With all the raw materials and industry materials we just wanted to be a little bit unique a little bit different from everyone else.”

“We’ve always tried to be one step ahead in fashion, a unique fashion industry. We just wanted to set a trend really and just expand our business into Caerleon and Usk.“ There is something for everyone in this Unisex salon offering you anything from haircuts to beauty treatments. You can also buy a range of products like shampoos and Cavall had nothing but good things to say about her business.

“It’s a fantastic salon to work for, very professional, very caring, very thoughtful.” She said.

It’s a lovely place to work for, very proud to work for Burlesque.”

As you make your way home from High Street, the last shop you will come across is Coopers. Opened in 2011 the shop sells all kinds of products from local makers in Cornwall and all the way up to Scotland. The success has seen owner Claire Cooper able to open a second shop in Cardiff Street last year in June and Claire feels that going independent has really helped her business.

“Independent gives you more freedom to stock the things you love. I only buy things in that I love and I always wanted to own by own business and I always loved unusual things for home so that’s how it stared.”

“We’ve got a lot of regular customers, which is brilliant that’s exactly what we want. We like being part of a village because you get to know our customers and that’s more one to one personal service that we give. People come in and they ask for a gift for somebody so we will show them what we have to offer. We love that kind of service to people.”

“Without customers you wouldn’t have a business, we listen to our customers, if they are looking for particular products that we don’t currently stock then we will look for them and see if we can bring that into the shop.”

“The service is 90% giving.” She added. “People want to be served, they want to be spoken too. They want to be valued. It’s just complete service as they step through the door.” She said. “We offer a one to one service which you won’t get that in bigger stores.”

“We listen to our customers, that’s what builds our business and changes our business and we keep changing stock on a regular basis, so people know that we are looking for things that are different, all the time.”