Leominster Pavilion, Herefordshire

In 2006, Leominster’s cricket pavilion was in a bad way. This beautiful Victorian building had been empty for three years and had fallen into disrepair and was being vandalised.

Help came in the form of Marshfield, a disabled living service in Leominster. The local council offered the service  the opportunity to take it on and, with the aid of a regional grant, turn it into a facility that would provide employment for local people with learning disabilities.

Marshfield’s Laura Ferguson  and Jon Pitts realised that he pavilion had great potential as a cafe and seized the opportunity. By August 2007, thanks to a grant, The Pavilion had been restored, made fit for purpose and was open for business.

From the very start, Jon (Laura having moved on) and the team had a very clear idea of what they wanted. They needed a high quality establishment which reflected the quality of the building and provided an appealing and elegant destination for locals and visitors alike. 

They also thought that they had the perfect location to sell ice cream because the cricket pavilion is on the town’s green and next to a children’s playground. After some research, they discovered that one of the UK’s leading ice cream equipment suppliers, RSS Hereford, was just down the road in Hereford.

They attended one of RSS’s ice cream demonstration days, which proved that their hunch was right. So after consultation and discussion with RSS, they invested in 2 ice cream display cabinets, each with 10 pans and got in touch with Llanfaes Dairy Ice Cream in Brecon, who would supply the ice cream for them to sell.

By 2009, Leominster Pavilion had proved to be a success and a popular destination in the town. It had also become clear that making the ice cream to sell would be the logical next step for the business to take. Once learnt, ice cream making is a relatively straightforward process and would provide fulfilling employment for those with learning disabilities.

A feasibility study proved that the idea would work, although it would take quite a lot of organisation. Undeterred, when additional funding became available, the enterprise invested in the work and equipment needed, including a batch freezer.

The staff at Leominster Pavilion are now making their own ice cream to sell, which is proving more popular than ever.

The same team has now set up a new social enterprise supporting learning disabled people to set up and run their own micro-enterprises. The ability to be trained and then hire professional equipment to make artisan ice-cream for very local markets is expected to be very popular. Indeed, such has been the success of the whole venture that the team is now considering working with RSS to offer support to other social enterprise organisations looking to set up ice cream businesses!