Friendship Partnership
Let’s meet Francesca Rowan-Plowden & Amy Eastall
UPDATE: Ferry Road Store is now online only.
Francesca, can you tell us your background?
Francesca. I moved to Rye from London in 2008 with my two children and my first husband, 15 years ago. We got the tenancy of Lamb House; we had to move in before the house opened for the new season. I was interviewed; I was one in 120 potential custodians, that came down to 20, then 12, the last eight and then it got down to the last two. By then, I had read every Henry James play and watched everything relevant to him by that stage.
The National Trust gave us an incredibly short time to sort everything out and turn our lives around. We came two weeks before the house opened with a list of 40 volunteers. I had training on historic preservation, what was valuable in the house and what wasn’t.
Lamb House is different today; when we were there, just three rooms downstairs were open to the public, and now the entire building is. We were the last tenants, and most of the house was ours to live in. So it had five bedrooms, three reception rooms, a kitchen, a courtyard and a garden.
“It took a while for some locals to warm to the idea of a 28-year-old girl living in a National Trust property with a young family.”
I set up a theatre company called the Lamb Players, which ran for ten years, every Summer and Christmas. So that ingratiated us into the town a little because it was Shakespeare by proper directors and actors.
A journalist from The Telegraph turned up on the front doorstep one day, after about six months of us living there. He said someone told me two actors have taken on Lamb House, is that you and can I write about it? So I said yes if I could mention the play we had coming up. They were only allowed to photograph our private rooms, not the National Trust rooms, which was their policy at the time. Our bathrooms were pretty cool and retro, with amazing 1950s lemon and mint colour baths. They wrote a full spread in the Saturday Telegraph Magazine. That led to another article about the interiors I was doing at Lamb House, which led to interior design for people’s homes.
With two young children to look after, I wasn’t earning any money as an actress, so I became an interior designer. I started with a few homes in Peasmarsh over by Tillingham, which led to some flats in London, which led to more bits and bobs.
Then Marcus of McCully & Crane Gallery and I were approached to do Goodnestone Park, a stately home in Kent. So we worked together for five years on various projects. When Marcus stopped to focus on his gallery I carried on doing projects such as Leeds Castle and Elmley, amongst others. I never trained at all; just one thing led to another.
Then I set up a charity called Design Havens for Heroes. I came up with the idea to do up National Health worker’s homes post-lockdown. Amy helped with a hospital room last Summer. The charity is currently dormant due to the volunteers having to return to work.
I asked suppliers if they’d donate fabrics, paint or other materials. Some influencers heard what we were doing, and it went viral; I was on the radio, the news, and suddenly, so many brands signed up to donate, sofa.com, Farrow & Ball. We did this for a few workers, a midwife, urologist, nurses and a paramedic. Then it became difficult going into people’s homes, so we started to focus on doing up staff rooms, like King’s Hospital in Denmark Hill and a medical centre in Kilburn.
We now need to finesse our idea for hospital staff rooms because many of the materials donated are not medical grade. So we need to change the format of the donations to carry on.
My Instagram following started to grow; people asked me about the items I posted and where they could get them. So I thought I could set up the shop and that was around the time when Amy and I met.
We met in the car park, picking up our children from school between lockdowns. We chatted, and I told Amy my plan to set up FRP Homestore, the shop which is now Ferry Road Store.
So, Amy, tell us your background?
Amy. After school, I went into fashion, worked on magazines, and assisted a stylist who worked for the music industry. So in my early twenties, we worked with bands like Girls Aloud and S Club for music videos and their appearances on Top of the Pops. It was super pop, but that is where all the money was. So we got jobs on music videos in Miami and Cape Town. It was terrific to hangout with the backing dancers and have a whale of a time. By the time grunge came in, the music industry had much less money. My boss did a bit more editorial work, and she didn’t need me so much.
So I got a job through a friend working as a booker at a model agency. At this stage, I realised that I preferred assisting to styling, and I like organising these mental creatives who are too busy for all of that. I am very good at corralling them into getting stuff done.
So when I got married and pregnant, I didn’t want to work all hours in the fashion industry; I wanted to be able to work as well as have time with my child. So a friend pointed out my background is in assisting, so that’s like being a personal assistant. And she had a private part-time PA role that could work for me. So this was in 2010, at St. James’ Palace, and the PA job was for Princes William and Harry. I was working for their private office at the top of these eaves. Four other people were working there who did all the official stuff like charity work.
“Having worked in fashion where anything goes and the wild, the better. My first day at St. James’ Palace, I arrived in trousers, and they said, we don’t wear trousers in the office. We wear skirts to the knee or below and some nude tights. So I had to go to M&S for the uniform.”
William and Catherine got engaged, and I worked on the royal wedding with Sarah Burton. I helped to organise lots of private stuff like the evening party for them and their mates, which was like a typical wedding. I spent the day in Buckingham Palace with Sarah Burton and the hairdressers and the people that made the bridesmaid dresses.
I was a fish out of the water; it wasn’t my scene, and I used the position as a stepping stone. I knew I’d be able to get the job I wanted after having that on my CV. The people were lovely, and I adored the job. It was such a moment in time, but I decided to leave after three years.
Then I became PA to Chrissie Rucker, founder of The White Company, for about four years. That was interesting from a female entrepreneur point of view, and she was very hands-on with the creative process. So I left that job to have another child and became a freelance PA with a handful of clients, which is when I moved to St Leonards.
On top of my freelance PA work, my first stylist boss, Maureen and I, had become great friends and wanted to go into business together. We had a friend that had moved to France and was sourcing antiques, and she asked if we would be interested in selling them for her in London. Maureen knew lots about antiques and I literally knew nothing. I was there to be the organiser. So we set up a website, we did fairs and it was the most fun learning on the job. Then our friend in France needed to stop for other priorities, Brexit was coming and the first lockdown happened so we called it a day, but I loved it.
I dropped off my daughter at school on her first day of reception, wearing a Ganni jumper, a Danish brand. Francesca spotted me across the car park. She said later, that isn’t the usual get-up I see in East Sussex of Barbour jackets and wellies. And we started chatting regularly in the school car park; about anything and everything. After the kid’s online homeschooling, we would stay talking on Zoom and eventually we went for a coffee.
How did the shop idea develop and grow into what you have today?
Amy. Well, we immediately got on and struck up a friendship during the weird six months around the first lockdown, and then Francesca mentioned starting a shop.
Francesca. Back in my London days, between acting jobs, I always worked in shops or was a terrible waitress. So I decided to start with an online shop because my Instagram followers were asking me for things, and they are based all around the country.
I told Amy I’d got an idea for setting up this interior shop. I had quite a lot of antiques in storage from interior projects which I hadn’t used. Amy said I’ve got experience selling antiques; she has experience and knows about SEO and E-commerce websites.
Amy. A great thing about being a PA for a long time is you build up a network of contacts for everything you need. So, I’d worked with Michael at the White Company, a web designer, amongst other creative things, and he’d moved down to Brighton with his fiancé Luke. So it was meant to be because he set
up our website FRP Homestore and online shop.
Francesca. My original concept was to curate products into houses, such as the country house, beach house, townhouse, and historic house. Because those titles match the mix of different projects, I do. So people could get that look for their home and an exciting way of shopping. But there was too much crossover. So when we opened the physical Ferry Road Store, we dropped that idea and created an emporium of different looks. So FRP Homestore ran for a year, and I employed Amy.
By January 2022, I saw 11 Ferry Road was up for rent. I’d always had my eye on it. So I pointed it out to Amy, and she said it’s huge; how will we fill it? Then we met the landlord, and he liked us. We did not hear from them for a while and we thought it must have gone to someone else. Then the landlord called Amy one day and said it’s yours if you want it. So we had two months to prepare it and open it for the Summer, and we opened Ferry Road Store as a partnership.
Amy. So we set about ripping up the old carpet and choosing a paint colour. Fenwick & Tilbrook, whose paint we stock, brought back an archive colour especially, which was a nice touch.
Francesca. Our long wall of shelving, that was originally the bookcases from the old Rye Primary School Library, which is now Rye Creative Centre. So the interior started to come together with help from friends.
Amy. Then we started researching out to stockists and letting them know it was just six weeks until we opened. And Francesca met people along the way through her interior work. Like Gabby from Daydress, she was the creative director of House & Garden, and Francesca met her through Design Havens for Heroes, and we are her only stockist. So people just took a punt on us, and I’m glad they did. So we opened on the 7th of July 2022.
We want people to visit the store, browse and have a chat. We love building relationships and are in it for the long haul.
Amy. The plan is to keep doing what we’re doing. We have had a few events in store so far; a couple has gone great guns and been fantastic. So we
want to build on that.
There has been an influx of creatives and people in the area for the last three years. So we are introducing more workshops within the space, which are an opportunity for people to do something for themselves and learn new skills.
Amy Eastall & Francesca Rowan-Plowden
Ferry Road Store is now online only.
www.ferryroadstore.com
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