Shop & Workshop
Come and visit our Shop & Workshop, in Crickhowell, South Wales.
Our Shop
If you enjoy old tools, collectables, or simply the thrill of browsing in a fascinating shop full of surprises, then come and visit us. You will find us our shop in Standard Street, Crickhowell NP8 1BZ – just up the hill passed The Bear.
The telephone number is 0330 355 0122, charged at a local rate call.
The shop is open Mon – Fri from 09:30 to 15:30 and Saturdays until 13:00 hrs.
From there we also offer a tool sharpening and repair service, we can re-handle your much-loved garden tools to keep them going for years to come. By choosing refurbished tools, you avoid cheap imports, get a higher quality product, help our planet and support a wonderful charity—all in one go.
Crickhowell is also a lovely market town with river and mountain walks and independent shops and cafes. It’s a great day out.
The Workshop
Our workshop is co-located with our shop. We currently have around 70 volunteers — men and women of all ages.
They are all invaluable to the work we do and we couldn’t operate without them. Our board of trustees is entirely made up of volunteers, most of whom can often be found working in our workshop or representing us at fairs and festivals across the region. It’s a very practical, hands-on team.
Here in Crickhowell, Wales, we have one part-time employee who along with some volunteers oversees the sorting and shipping of tools, as well as the training and coordination of our workshop volunteers.
The volunteers and supervisors meet in our workshop, where they repair and refurbish mainly garden tools. These are then sold in our shop and at the various fairs and festivals we attend to raise funds.
Packing Depot
In addition to our workshop and shop in Crickhowell, we operate a sorting and packing depot in Llangattock. Here, tools and sewing machines are assessed, sorted, and packed. Suitable items are shipped to Tanzania, while those not appropriate for use there are sent to our workshop for refurbishment before being sold in our shop or at events and festivals. From this depot, we also run our eBay shop.
Lightweight sewing machines that wouldn’t withstand conditions in Tanzania are donated to UK Charities to support people in the UK. Items not suitable for Tanzania or for us to resell are passed on to a local car boot trader. Scrap materials are sold to a local merchant, and unusable wooden handles are used to fuel the workshop’s wood burner. In this way, nothing goes to waste.
TFSR Cymru & Sustainability
In addition to keeping high-quality used tools in circulation and reducing the need for cheap imports, we also recycle scrap metal.
This comes from tools that are beyond repair, as well as items such as used copper and brass fittings. Over the past seven years, we have recycled 422 kg of copper, 1,101 kg of brass, 220 kg of lead, and 1,099 kg of wire — along with many other materials. Altogether, this amounts to around 4 tonnes of recycled metal, raising £8,921 for the charity to support our ongoing work.
We also repurpose thousands of large empty paint tins kindly donated by Collins Design and Build in Ewyas Harold. Instead of going to landfill, these tins are used to pack the tools we send to Tanzania, where they are later reused locally — often turned into charcoal stoves or used for mixing plaster and concrete.
Even small items like N₂O canisters find a new life — one of our blacksmiths reuses them to form the petals of the steel garden flowers he creates.
Opening Hours
Monday to Friday: 9:30am - 3:30pm
Saturday: 10am - 1pm
Phone Number
0330 355 0122
Address
Upper House Farm. Standard Street, Crickhowell. Powys. NP8 1BZ
Where we are
Support us
Help us support the people of Tanzania
Donations of tools, sewing machines, or financial contributions are always deeply valued and appreciated. They help to change lives.