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Welcome to the Yarpole Parish website - get information on events, facilities within the Parish, social groups, Yarpole Community Shop, The Bell at Yarpole, volunteering opportunities, the Parish Council, the PCC and more.

Yarpole events

The Gallery Cafe will be closed on Monday 5th May

80^th anniversary VE Day celebrations in Yarpole. Thursday, 8^th May.

If you are organising an event and you'd like it to appear on the website calendar and in the regular 'what's on' email, Facebook and in The Parishioner, please use the on-line form.

If you would like to receive regular emails about forthcoming events email - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Welcome to Yarpole, nestling in rolling countryside in North Herefordshire, mid way between the market towns of Ludlow and Leominster.

Yarpole is a parish of approximately 700 people and comprises the villages of Yarpole, Bircher and Lucton and the communities on Bircher Common and Bicton. The Parish of Yarpole is unusual in that there are two working parish churches. St Leonard's situated in the village of Yarpole and St Michael and All Angels Church situated next to Croft Castle, a National Trust property. Many visitors assume that the church is managed by the National Trust as it is part of a visit to the estate. The National Trust does not contribute to the running costs of St Michael and All Angels church.

Yarpole Community Shop celebrates 20 years.

At the end of 2004 the last remaining village shop closed. In the 1950's there were 7 local shops within the parish boundaries. By the 1980's there were just two remaining. The 1990's saw the total reduced to one.

The parish plan published in 2004 outlined the survival of the village shop, along with the village pub as one of the priorities for the Parish.
A working party was formed to consider how a community shop could be established. Yarpole Community Shop Association Ltd was formerly incorporated under the auspices of the Financial Services Authority on the 24th March 2005.

Enterprise Inns, the owners of the Bell Inn, had given permission for land behind the pub to be used for a temporary village shop. The shop opened using a leased Portakabin. The Post Office supported the move and installed their counter in the Portakabin. The council granted a temporary planning notice allowing the shop to remain for 2 years.

The original Potakabin being unloaded

328 people have spent £10.00p and have purchased non redeemable shares in the shop, giving the Shop start-up funding.

At the same time the church authorities identified the need to improve and modernise St Leonard's church so that it would be fit for use in the 21st century. A Building Group committee was established from people within the Parish who after consultation drew up plans for the re-ordering of the church. A total sum of £250,000.00p was raised for the project; of which £37,750.00p came from Parish fund raising. Work started on the church in January 2009 and was completed by September 2009. The shop moved into its new premises in the church on 1st October 2009. There is still on-going work required to incorporate the chancel area into the heating system and to insulate the chancel roof.

Yarpole Community Shop became the first full-time shop to operate in a church.

The shop is managed by a committee (all of whom are volunteers) of 6. The committee is formerly elected each year.

The shop employs a part time manager who is also the Post Master for 18 hours per week.

There are now over 30 volunteers of all ages who work in the shop, helping to man the shop and this has allowed us to recently extend the shop opening hours. We welcome schoolchildren who work with us as part of their work experience. There are further volunteers who are able to help out as reserves; the summer months can sometimes be difficult to find regular cover. On top of this there are other people who will run errands for the shop, such as collecting goods or delivering to people's homes. There are a further 8 regular volunteers who come on Saturday and Sunday mornings, before the shop opens, to collate the newspapers.

In 2010 the Shop was voted the Best Village Shop & Post Office in the UK by the Countryside Alliance. A group from the Shop travelled to the House of Lords to receive the award.

In 2011 the Shop was awarded the prestigious Queens Award for Voluntary Service; the first community run shop in the country to receive the award.

2014 saw the shop selected as Runner Up in the Rural Community Ownership Awards by the Plunkett Foundation in the Better Business category. There are now over 300 Community Shops operating in the UK.

2021 saw the Shop voted the Best Village Shop & Post Office in the Midlands by the Countryside Alliance.

Since 2013 the Shop has been able to donate money to local projects from profits made during the year. Over £2,000 was donated to local projects in 2018. 2021 saw the figure rise to nearly £9,000. In all the Shop has donated nearly £20,000 to local projects ranging from donations to the Church, the Parish Hall, The Youth Group, the Birchpole Singers, the Dog Agility Group. Many of the new gates in the Parish, replacing old styles, have been funded by the Shop as well as the strimmer used by the Footpaths team.

The Shop stocks a wide range of products, ranging form the basic to the more exotic. 40% of goods sold are from within a 40 mile radius of Yarpole. Several products are unique to the Shop; such as Yarpole Shopping Bags, postcards, calendars and a previous Yarpole recipe book.

The Gallery Café run by the church operates 6 days a week and is the perfect place to enjoy a coffee and homemade cake and admire the fine mediaeval church roof!

Come and visit us and see for yourself.

There has been a community recorded here for over 2000 years. The village is mentioned in the Doomsday Book. The Anglo-Saxon meaning of Yarpole (Iarpol or Yarpol) is fish pool or dam for containing fish. The original fish pool has long since been abandoned, the remains of the dam wall are still visible.

Yarpole still retains its red telephone kiosk, its community owned and managed pub, The Bell at Yarpole and has an award winning community run village shop and Post Office operating from within the Parish Church, St Leonard's. The first full time shop in a church.

Mobile 'phones don't work here!

Traditionally farming was the major employer in the Parish. Farming in Herefordshire remains a combination of agriculture and livestock; a mixture of sheep and cattle. Hereford cattle, which have fallen out of fashion due to their slower maturity, originated in the county. These cattle are experiencing a resurgence due to the quality of the meat they produce. The milk used by Cadbury's for its chocolate comes from the county and is processed in the factory south of Leominster.