Oakham is a small town of 12,000 people from which Nottingham, Leicester and Northampton are all similarly distant. As such, any retailer wishing to attract anything other than very local shoppers has to provide an environment that can’t be found elsewhere.

Cavells Outdoor has been open since the end of August and the brief provided by founder and brand importer-cum-retailer Corry Cavell-Taylor to Butterfield Design, which worked on the project, was to create a destination store that would “attract shoppers from up to 50 miles away”. The outcome is a 4,000 sq ft, two-floor store that until recently served as a shed for animal feed.

After a two-month fit-out, the structure, which is in essence an agricultural shed, has been transformed. The shopfront is clad in treated cedar, with large, oak- framed windows providing lots of light. Within, the store is divided into outdoorwear on the ground and “countrywear” upstairs, accessed by a glass, steel and concrete staircase.

The look of both floors is punctuated by large wooden poles, arranged in lines to appear as if they run from the roof down to the ground floor. The wooden theme is picked up on both levels by the mid-shop equipment, constructed by combining split wooden poles connected by steel scaffolding and with glass shelves.

The overall effect is upscale and what is interesting is that despite of the same materials being used, the two floors have a quite different ambience, in keeping with the nature of the merchandise they house. A startlingly contemporary addition to the tea and antique shop nature of much of the rest of sleepy Oakham.

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