Jill Atkinson, opened her first Olive Branch shop in 2005 but for 15 years before that she worked in the financial services industry. However she remembers from a very small age when visiting other people’s homes with her parents, taking in every detail of decoration, furniture and quality.
Growing up on a farm in Silsden Moor gave her a love of the country and she cites seeing her first edition of Country Life magazine as almost an epiphany! “I just knew it was me. It was like a revelation.” She says.
During her days in the finance industry, Jill became an avid auction goer and began buying and selling vintage goods, furniture and animal sets.
She also married Andrew, a Livestock Trader and is now mum to three fabulous children, Olivia, Henry & Oscar.
Opening The Olive Branch was the fruition of a long held dream to harness her love of design and quality with a business. It was also a cohesive effort by Jill’s family and good friends, especially Jill’s sister-in-law and ‘Domestic Goddess’ Jane Atkinson, and Helen Iveson. Helen enjoyed the experience so much; she went on to open her own shop!
Why the name ‘The Olive Branch’? Jane thought it would be an apt name because Phyllis Rowe gave the gift of kindness and friendship, the most important gift of all.
OUR HISTORY
Addingham
Phyllis Rowe and her mother before her ran the haberdashery and fancy good store in Addingham making it a family business for over 100 years. Phyllis never married and her and her shop became the heart and soul of Addingham. Her mother had been a local dressmaker and milliner when she took over the shop and Phyllis still worked in the local mill. At the turn of the century, Addingham was then a bigger area than Ilkley and boasted over 90 shops.
If Rowe’s didn’t have what you needed in stock, they’d order it from nearby Leeds. Many a time young Phyllis would go to the local railway station to pick up a morning jacket for a funeral or a specially carved walking stick.
Rowe’s though was much more than somewhere you could buy a yard of silk or a pair of new scissors. If someone in Addingham had a problem, they’d go and see Miss Rowe. She was the soul of tact and discretion and never gossiped about her customers troubles and she drilled it into her staff to do the same. She had a heart bursting with compassion and only saw the good in people.
Fate brought Jill to take over from Miss Rowe. She’s been in shop before and a local farmer, Alistair Wilkinson had introduced the two. Jill’s youngest son, Oscar was poorly and off school and Jill was dropping him off at her mother-in-laws in Addingham when she saw the For Sale sign. Miss Rowe’s health was deteriorating and now in her eighties she decided to sell. Without even going into the shop, Jill made an offer.
Miss Rowe came to open the newly named Olive Branch in 2005 demanding a fish & chip supper with curry sauce for her troubles.
She died, aged 90 on St Valentines Day 2006. Her funeral procession began from the shop that she had run for nearly all of her life. The entire village came out to pay tribute to a very special lady.
The Village Shop
In the middle of our village
Step backward into time,
For nestled in the main street
Is a favourite shop of mine,
The shelves are full of knitting wool
Arranged in every hue,
Pins and needles socks and gloves
Are waiting here for you.
Within this little shop though
Are things money cannot buy,
Love and warmth and friendship
An oasis warm and dry,
There’s a chair or two to sit on
When friends drop in to chat,
The floor is neatly covered
With the largest welcome mat.
God looks down from heaven
He doesn’t count what’s sold,
But the precious time you give
For both the young and old.
I’d make the world a better place
Grant me this single wish,
That every town and village
Could have a shop like this.
This little rhyme for Christmas
From all who love you so,
Your magic shop keep open
God bless you Phyllis Rowe.
Alistair Wilkinson - Lord of the Manor Addingham
Easingwold
At the turn of 20th century, the now named Baker House was a bike shop. It was still this in 1941 when ….. Baker bought the shop. The advent of world War Two scuppered ……’s plans to turn the shop into an electric emporium. He’s always been interested in the then new technology. He’d begun repairing radios and televisions in 1927 in Marton in the Forest where he then lived. His family though were originally grain merchants from Hull. The Department of Agriculture took over the shop as a planning base for the faming war effort.
It was to be another 10 years, in 1951, before ……. fulfilled his dream and opened his electrical showroom. In the early 1950’s electrical home wares were a novelty and so ……..was ahead of his time. Curiously, when Jill restored shop she found a farthing from 1951 which has the picture of a Wren on.
……… Baker loved technology photography and in the upstairs rooms – now part of the Olive Branch shop – he had a recording studio. Big name big bands of the day like Victor Sylvester would come to record there and in the nearby school.
May Foster was a Sales Assistant from the day the shop opened. She met her husband Noel, one of the electrical fitters there. When ……..Baker, who like Miss Roe in Addingham never married, was ready to retire to the Lakes, May & Noel took over the business. They still kept a bedroom for ……. Baker there – that room is now The Olive Branch’s changing room.
The Fosters retired themselves in 2007 and in the summer of 2008, whilst she was having tea at the Tee Hee tea shop next door, Jill Atkinson noticed a garage sale of fittings from the shop and bought a lot of them. Nine months later, the local agents rang her to say the shop was for sale…she didn’t hesitate.
