19 Upper Woodcote Village, Purley
First please let us introduce ourselves to you all. We are Alex and Laura Goward. We have been residents on The Webb estate for 3 years, during which time we have produced our two children Rocco and Tahlia. Alex was born and bred in Purley and now works in London, and myself Laura (Hamilton) might be a familiar face to some of you if you are a fan of Channel 4’s A Place in the Sun.
As a presenter of the TV Show and also a good friend of Mike and Jill (who many of you know ran The Lord Roberts for over 19 years, and were highly regarded and fondly thought of by the community), I was extremely sad to see them move to pastures new. However, I was honoured when they asked me to be able to help them with their search of a new life in the sun. I still regularly speak to Mike and Jill, they know about our plans and have been excited to hear about the future of The Lord Roberts. Now it is official, we are pleased that we can share these details with you too.
One of our main aims is to reinstate the post office. Thanks to Jill she has connected us with the relevant people and we are in the process of an application. Hopefully this will be the news you were anticipating.
We have been working with an architect to ensure the design of new village shop space will reflect the charm and history of estate. It is of enormous importance to Mr and Mrs Webb (who we have also been in regular contact with), that the shop remains the heart of the community and a real asset to us all. In addition to offering a small convenience store, we hope the shop will offer some lovely local produce to include artisan breads, a deli counter, afternoon tea and ploughman’s lunch. It was once a Temperance Inn after-all. We have some lovely plans for the garden and sincerely hope ‘The Lord Roberts on The Green’ will offer something that every generation will be able to enjoy and benefit from.
With a planned monthly newsletter to keep you updated with our little events, we hope that the community will want to be involved. We are working hard to get everything up and running as quickly as possible but you may have to be a bit patient with us whilst the building work is carried out – this will commence very soon.
In the meantime all we ask of you is to please spread the word, encourage people to log on to the new website www.lordrobertsonthegreen.com and register their email addresses so we can keep everyone up to date with what is going on.
Here’s to the future and thank you for taking the time to read this!
Kind Regards
Alex & Laura
Great to see a campaign going to keep this lovely shop a part of the local community. And to hear we have more famous neighbours!
I’m pleased it will reflect the history of the estate and provide quality, artisan products. Perhaps it could sell some of the home-made produce from Purley residents.
I’ve always thought the Lord Roberts would be fantastic if it had a little bar in the corner, so locals could meet for a quiet ale in the evenings. Is that an option?
Really hope this project gets of the ground. Our residents will love to visit for coffee. So will the staff at Beth Ezra Care Home
Would like to receive news about this please.