THE reputation of Wellington Town Council’s pioneering Pop Up Shop, in Fore Street, has spread the length of the UK.

More than 50 handmade crafters are currently using the town centre shop for a month-long promotion of their work – and one of them booked her place while living in Aberdeen.

Fused glass designer Kate Barnett came across social media posts about the Pop Up Shop handmade crafters despite living almost as far from Wellington on mainland Britain as is possible.

And because she and electrical engineer husband Neil Powers were looking to relocate to Somerset, she booked her Pop Up Shop concession in 2022 while still in Scotland.

Ms Barnett, whose mother Jean Barnett, moved to live in Fitzhead, near Milverton, about five years ago, has since relocated to Bishops Lydeard. She also has two aunties living in Wellington.

She said: “The Pop Up Shop is really good, a great idea.

“Having a shop premises, especially at the moment, is so expensive to take on long-term so it is a really good way to reach people and it is great the council uses the building for local charities and groups.

“In Aberdeen I was looking at things in the Taunton and Wellington area because we were thinking about moving there, and I had just bought a piece online from one of the crafters and I discovered the Pop Up Shop.

“So last year I asked them if I could have space when the crafters were next in the Pop Up Shop, and here I am.”

Ms Barnett, who previously worked in the oil industry, has been making fused glass pieces for 20 years after attending a class run by a local woman.

She enjoyed it so much that she went to several more classes and ended up buying a microwave kiln and starting to make her own items and trading as Highland Heart Design.

Now, she has her own large kiln, the largest that can be used while still being plugged into a socket, and uses a type of sheet glass imported from America by a Bristol company because it is not produced anywhere in the UK.

Much of Ms Barnett’s work is her own design as and when ideas pop into her head, but she also works to order, such as a current commission for bluebells and thistles on a blue background – a piece which is going back to Scotland.

“Literally, I can have a piece of glass stood there for months and months with no idea of what to do with it, and then all of a sudden something pings into my head,” she said.

“A lot of it goes for export to America, even though there are a lot of great glass people in the States.”

The handmade crafters are in the Pop Up Shop until March 25, taking them through Mothering Sunday and finishing two weeks before Easter.

Organisers Alice Burns, of Clayhidon, who runs Four Little Princes, and Deanna Cranmer, of Deanna’s Personalised Creations, in Sampford Peverell, said they had been unsure how it would pan out as it was the first time in 18 months they had been able to use the Pop Up Shop.

But Mrs Burns said this week: “All our crafters have had an amazing response so far and people have said how much they have missed us and they are really pleased we are back.

“We have promoted it heavily on social media and lots of customers have been coming in to browse and buy from our talented and creative crafters.

“It must be good for Wellington as a whole as well that people are coming into the town to see us because I am sure many of them will also do other shopping while they are here.”