Stepping BACK IN TIME

Clare Bennetthas created a home – and antiques emporium – in the premises of a perfectly preserved 100-year-old jewellers. The result is wonderfully enchanting...

- MARC ALLUM

These days, the idea of a bricks and mortar business seems alien to many. Why have a shop when you can so easily run a smart website and keep your stock in a faceless and efficient warehouse? Naturally, many businesses have gone this way in order to balance a profitable enterprise with the changing way we shop.

Not so Pipeche at Jutson, Clare Bennett's gloriously physical antiques business in Sandwich, Kent. The shop's curious name commemorates the building's former occupants, DJ Jutson (a jewellers founded in 1920) while also referencing a much-loved enamel street sign - Rue de Pipêche - that hangs on a wall. As all of the original fittings, including the huge jewellery safes, windows and shop sign, were still in situ when Clare took over, it made complete sense to tie her antiques business to the history and the character of the old Jutson premises. The two enterprises so clearly complemented one another, while also reflecting Clare's personal style.

In a way, Pipeche is a shop frozen in time: part of a historic streetscape, with a workshop at the back like a scene from an HG Wells novel and on cold days a fire burns in the grate. But it's not a museum, Clare is keen to point out; it's a business and a home.