Eyebright says goodbye to Christmas, hello yarn

After two decades, the tinsel and holly of the Christmas shop at Eyebright Country Store will be no more as the business metamorphoses into a wool shop.

It’s not the first time the business has altered its path because it started life as a dried flower shop 39 years ago at the other end of McShane Rd, before moving along the road and diversifying into a year-round Christmas shop alongside jewellery, gifts, food and silk flowers.

The business has been for sale for about 18 months as owner Peter Owen sought to semi retire now that he nears 70, but a buyer hasn’t appeared.

He says it is time to “call it a day” and reinvent the business once more into a two-day-a-week wool shop that suits semi-retirement.

“We’ll be wool on steroids,” he says. “Wool has become more and more trendy over the last few years. I think it started around Covid time and people started with knitting and crocheting and anything to do with yarn, and we now have an incredibly loyal following.”

Eyebright has been best-known for its Christmas section which has operated year-round ever since he visited his birth country of Canada and saw thriving Christmas shops in the middle of summer.

It’s been popular here too, especially in our summer when it really is the festive season.

“Christmas is buzzy and exciting and full on and lasts for two months, and that’s what a lot of people know us for.”

Now, Santa has already removed the keys for the Christmas train that chugs around the model track and “taken them back to the North Pole”.

He’s not sad the business hasn’t sold because “it’s not a terrible place to live”, with 4ha surrounding the shop where he will continue to grow and sell Christmas trees because it would be “an absolute tragedy to stop that!”

He hopes someone will pick up the famous Wendelton Guinea Pig Village and keep it running elsewhere as he says it has been a “rip-roaring success” to the point it attracts international visitors.

“We get people from Europe saying they’ve heard about the village and had to come to Nelson to see it. The guinea pigs aren’t only fantastic because they keep so well - they’re amazing animals as well.”

Peter says the shop will have a “sale to end all sales” from this weekend to clear stock and he will close the doors on 4 April, with a reopening as a wool shop the following week. It will regularly open Wednesday and Thursday each week.