This town’s only store has closed. Now heartbroken locals are banding together to buy it
By Carolyn Webb
When Ray Pattle’s wife died three years ago, during the COVID-19 pandemic, his community in Guildford, a small town north-west of Melbourne, was there for him.
“I used to go down to the shop and there’d always be people there having coffee out the front,” he says.
Ray Pattle (far right), Liz Monty next to him, Penny Zepnick, holding baby, and other locals want to reopen the Guildford general store.Credit: Penny Stephens
“And they would keep and eye on you and check that you were all right.”
That shop was the historic Guildford general store one kilometre from his house. It was the heart of the town, says Pattle, but it closed in March.
However, locals have refused to accept the store’s demise and have launched a Save Our Store campaign to reopen it.
They have formed a committee to raise $1 million to buy the business and the building from a consortium that owns it.
The same building when it was the Commercial Hotel, before 1916, and the town store was in the shop at right.
They plan to form a co-operative, asking that 200 members of the public each buy a $5000 share. The committee’s leader, Liz Monty, says 70 people have pledged to buy shares so far.
Once that number gets to 180, the co-operative will be registered, a bank account will be opened and they can accept money.
Monty said other co-operative enterprises such as the Colbinabbin general store in northern Victoria and a pub at Sea Lake, in the state’s north-west, have shown what’s possible.
The Guildford general store is listed for sale on agent Maltby Property’s website with a $950,000 price.
A leaflet advertising the campaign to save the store.Credit: Penny Stephens
Monty said the funds raised on top of buying the store would be spent on repairs, buying stock and employing a paid manager.
The building dates to 1865, when it opened as the Commercial Hotel. After a fire destroyed the store next door, the pub was converted to the general store in 1916.
Guildford’s claims to fame include footballer Ron Barassi spending his early childhood there. And a 500-year-old, 32-metre-high river red gum in Guildford was named the 2023 Victorian Tree of the Year.
Penny Zepnick, whose family owned the store from 2015 to 2021, said reopening it would be a boon to elderly people who weren’t able to drive elsewhere to shop.
The Guildford general store, date unknown.Credit: Facebook
She said the Guildford store was “a place where they could walk to and meet each other, and do their grocery shopping, and not have to rely on someone else, or a service; where they could continue to be independent.”
Liz Monty, who moved to Guildford, near Castlemaine, with one of her daughters seven years ago, said the store’s closure left “a huge hole” in the town, and she was devastated by it. A kind stranger had chatted to her at the store when she was a newcomer. “He gave me his number and said call me if you need anything.”
It turned out his nickname was Pockets, and he was a professional clown. He was one of a string of new friends Monty made in the town.
“Community means everything to me, and to a lot of people, and I don’t think Guildford will thrive without the general store,” she said.
Liz Monty moved to Guildford seven years ago.Credit: Penny Stephens
“It’s somewhere where we connect. And if we lose connection with people, Guildford is just going to be ‘somewhere where you live’ rather than a home.”
There are no other stores in town, but the post office has started selling basic groceries, sandwiches, newspapers and coffee.
Ray Pattle, who co-wrote the book A History of Guildford, said the general store had been very popular.
“It was the heart of the town,” Pattle said.
“I remember during COVID, we all used to meet down there, sit out the front, have coffee, and check on how we were all travelling during lockdowns. It was just a lovely place to meet.”
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