What’s New

WagWorks

We wanted to bring you the scoop on the official launch of WagWorks, a holistic canine care space that opened on 86-92 Fulham High Street in mid-May but had to wait as there was a national press exclusive in the mix; Sunday Times Style - fair enough! Having said that the lovely team behind this “happy place for city dogs” couldn’t have been nicer and more up for a chat with Urban Village LDN. We were invited in for a tour and got to hear the WagWorks story from the germ of an idea through to it’s launch from founders Jamie Netherthorpe and Rhi Hudd.

When we asked why Fulham for the first WagWorks location, Jamie told us “Fulham was an obvious choice, there’s a lot of dogs in the area and surrounding postcodes, the available space was located near a tube, we have Bishops Park behind us, all plus factors as the WagWorks concept is designed to be local, convenient and flexible. The flat level 6,000 sq ft space was a shell which gave us the ability to design what we wanted, working with Fulham interiors / architects Simpson Studio. After consulting with Winkie Spears a dog behaviourist we could bring much more to our original concept and make it a stimulating dog centric space”.

There is a Scent Den which evolves and changes to ensure noses keep sniffing and tails keep wagging, the Park (the largest free space in the building) for playtime with stables for snoozing or time out’s, K9 grass is used for pit stops and there is a wellness assessment room where resident vet Erin is based. With expertise on site small health issues such as ear infections, small wounds can be treated, preventive medicine explored and treatments (physiotherapy, red laser) undertaken including recovery from injuries. The Forest Walk is an area which nicely showcases the attention to detail that has been considered in every aspect of the space’s design. Rhi told Urban Village LDN “rather than a straight corridor the curvature means that dogs don’t have to meet head on and the use of wood slats means that dogs aren’t able to see out onto the street but daylight isn’t restricted”.

WagWorks is a members club where “the dog’s the customer” and Rhi told us how it works “we launched applications for memberships in October last year so we’ve opened with our founding members and we’re slowly integrating dogs into the space. Every dog has an assessment which includes a health check by Erin and a suitability check to ensure they will enjoy the environment, this includes looking at levels of confidence and curiosity. We don’t accept aggressive dogs but we’re happy to help complex dogs that need a little more care and attention adjusting to our space. Our membership is £45 which includes a full and regular monthly health check as well as all your dog’s monthly parasite treatments. A full day at daycare is £48 (7am-7:30pm) and half a day is £35 (7am-1pm / 1:30pm-7:30pm)”.

Future plans at WagWorks include overnight care, a countryside holiday spot, developing the site next door to house grooming, adding to their training programme and introducing ways to support the local community. Check out their website on the link below or give them a follow on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/wagworkslondon

Mother's Bakehouse

Local resident Kate Modeland recently opened Mother’s Bakehouse with the simple aim of offering fresh, home-baked sourdough and delivering it locally; sometimes still warm from just being out of the oven. Kate told Urban Village LDN that although the business is in it’s early days everyone who tries her bread “loves it” and since opening a couple of months ago her Fulham customer base is growing. Kate makes her sourdough bread at home which comes in different loaves from farmhouse white to a fruit loaf and she has just started baking baguettes which went down well at a recent event at Marie D’ Orliac with one purchaser saying “how can you not be French?”, you can’t get a better critique on a French baguette than that!

Mother’s Bakehouse sourdough bread can be ordered as a one off or a weekly order which automatically renews. Orders have to be placed 24 hours in advance and once out of the oven Kate hops on her bicycle to make morning deliveries Tuesday through Saturday. We had a chat with Kate who decided to leave a career in advertising after a few brutal years of 14 hr days spent on Zoom calls. “I didn’t intend to start this business. I’d always loved cooking and wanted to own my own cafe producing simple dishes such as eggs on toast served with good coffee. After trying my sourdough people kept asking me to make them bread so I did, then started trialling making it for other people and it went from there with the recent purchase of a bread oven. It’s a very different world to advertising!”.

There are no nasties in Mother’s Bakehouse products simply flour, water and salt and we love the story behind how her sourdough starter began. “I found sourdough on my own personal quest to reduce my family’s reliance on supermarkets (for the good of the planet and our bodies, not to mention our food bill with three extremely hungry boys at home). I decided to shop locally and make as much of our food as possible from scratch. I mixed water and flour together and watched it slowly start to bubble with life. I still marvel at its natural magic. It’s a remarkable little jar, creating an intoxicating natural flavour and a soft, sticky texture. It also continually reminds me of the beauty of real home food. My starter is now 5 years old, has travelled to a few places in my suitcase (I’m terrified of leaving it home alone) and it's still the same starter that breathes life into every loaf in Mother’s Bakehouse”.

Mother’s Bakehouse currently offers free local delivery in Fulham and their Farmhouse, Really Chunky Wholemeal and Rye loaves are all £5, £5.90 for fruit and olive loaves and baguettes are £2.50 each. Hit the link to Mother’s Bakehouse to place an order or get in touch kate@mothersbakehouse.com in the meantime we love hearing how Kate’s sourdough has travelled with her - where’s the jar heading next this summer?

Studio Kkot

At the inaugural Spring Fayre on Wandsworth Bridge Road we kept seeing gorgeous artistically, natural hand tied bouquets winding their way through the crowds. Of course we had to find out where they were coming from. Behind the stand a shop was being used as their HQ and it wasn’t long before we spotted the “coming soon” signs at number 192 Wandsworth Bridge Road. We got in touch with Studio Kkot and heard back from Ally Han the local resident behind the business.

Originally from South Korea Ally told Urban Village LDN that she fell in love with London and then after leaving the fashion industry she feel in love with flowers and realised she could turn a hobby she loved into a job. “Floristry changed my life, flowers helped me overcome depression and after going to college before the pandemic I set up Studio Kkot working on weddings, events, in store displays. Moving from Shoreditch to Fulham I noticed that there were mainly traditional florists in the area and that locals loved flowers even the displays at Waitrose sold out. So I thought when this site came up that I’d grab it and go for it. We’re not a traditional studio or flower shop more a space from which we’re going to be selling not only fresh flowers but lots of dried flowers, lifestyle products including candles and pottery. I want to share things I love with people from UK designers, brands and also Korean brands because I don’t want to loose my roots, my heritage and originality”.

Studio Kkot opens on Saturday 2 July after hard work creating the interior space herself, painting, decorating, putting her art major to use and no doubt roping in her husband who is the General Manager at Fenn next door. Ally told us she’d love to meet more Fulhamites so do pop in say hello, find out more about her floral artistry and plans for the studio . Ally told us that Kkot means flower in Korean so 192 Wandsworth bridge Road is literally studio flower. Head to Instagram to get a real flavour of Ally’s incredible work https://www.instagram.com/studiokkot_london or head to the website on the link below. We always get complimented on our website’s photography but this time our pic really doesn’t do justice to Ally’s work.

The People On Platform 5

Fulham resident, author and blogger Clare Pooley’s second novel The People On Platform 5 is out now just in time for you to pop into Nomad and pick up a signed copy for some summer / holiday reading. Clare told Urban Village LDN “the story revolves around a group of commuters who all take the Hampton Court to Waterloo line into work every day (back when we did that kind of thing). They know their fellow travellers well by sight, give each other nicknames and make heinous assumptions about one another, but they never, ever speak. Because the first rule of London commuting is that you never talk to strangers on the train. All this changes, however, when one of the group chokes on a grape and nearly dies. His life is saved by a fellow commuter doing the Heimlich manoeuvre, and from that moment on extraordinary things start to happen”.

Sounds like a great read! Find out more about Clare Pooley when we featured her on our “Made in Fulham” page https://www.urbanvillageldn.com/made-in-fulham-june and check out her debut novel “The Authenticity Project” which features some local / SW6 spots that you might be familiar with https://www.urbanvillageldn.com/whats-new-february