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Proposal · prepared for Brocksbushes Farm Shop · 19 May 2026

A few specific fixes for brocksbushes.co.uk

Brocksbushes Farm Shop · Stocksfield, Northumberland · website rebuild

I rebuild small-business sites in my spare time when I can see they are leaving conversions on the table. Three things stood out on a careful read of brocksbushes.co.uk on mobile. Below are the three findings, then a working rebuild you can click through at /preview/.

Open live preview  ↗ Read the three findings Reply to the proposal
Stocksfield · Tyne Valley · since 1979

Forty-six years of the Dickinson family on the same Tyne Valley ground. Open the live preview ↗

Three findings, in order of revenue impact

What the current site is leaving on the table.

A walk-through of the live brocksbushes.co.uk on 19 May 2026.

01

Forty-six years of Dickinson family heritage are buried beneath a Play-Barn carousel on a Shopify base theme.

Observation
Billy Dickinson and his mother bought the farm in 1979 and opened with pick-your-own raspberries. Billy married Caroline in 1982. Their small shop opened in 1983, nine weeks of the year. In 2007 Caroline was received at Buckingham Palace by Queen Elizabeth II for her contribution to the business. In 2017 their son Harry came back to Northumberland with his wife Rose and spent three years getting planning permission for a brand-new building. In 2024 the 16-month, four-times-larger rebuild opened. None of that lives above the fold of brocksbushes.co.uk. The current homepage hero is a Play-Barn web banner inside a Shopify carousel.
Revenue impact
The whole price-point justification of an independent farm shop is the named family, the named producers, and the line that runs from the field to the bench. Brocksbushes has all of that and forty-six years of it. A customer landing from a Hexham Courant link or a "farm shop near Hexham" search reads "Family Days Out Northumberland" in the title tag, sees a soft-play carousel, and never learns the 1979 founding date or that they are buying from the same family that the Queen received at Buckingham Palace. The premium that pays for the new build is being told only to readers of Appetite Magazine.
Cause
The current site is a Shopify base theme built around the e-commerce stack. The homepage is a stack of merchandising slots, not a designed family narrative. The about page (/pages/about-us) holds the heritage story, three clicks away from any natural entry point.
After rebuild
The rebuild leads with the family. Hero H1 names Brocksbushes as the Tyne Valley farm shop the Dickinson family have run since 1979. Heritage section on the dark band tells the 1979-1983-2007-2017-2024 timeline in five entries with the Caroline Buckingham Palace and Rose 2024 reopening quotes pulled out. Person schema for Billy, Caroline, Harry, Rose so AI assistants asked "who owns Brocksbushes" name them.
02

Zero structured data on the page Google indexes for "farm shop Hexham", despite 3,004+ four-star reviews and the Hexham Courant write-up.

Observation
A crawl of brocksbushes.co.uk surfaces no application/ld+json blocks of consequence. No GroceryStore or LocalBusiness with the Stocksfield NE43 7UB PostalAddress, the +441434633100 telephone, the Mon-Sat 8:30-17:30 / Sun 10:00-16:00 openingHoursSpecification. No FAQPage despite a customer-FAQ being implicit in the site. No AggregateRating despite a publicly-cited Google rating of 4.3 stars from over 3,004 reviews and the Hexham Courant calling Brocksbushes "one of Northumberland's highest-rated farm shops". The og:image is a sitewide Shopify default, not a hero photo of the new 2024 farm shop.
Revenue impact
When a Hexham diner asks Siri "farm shop near me with a restaurant" or a Newcastle parent searches "soft play and lunch near Corbridge", the answering layer of the web is built from structured data. Brocksbushes is silent in that layer. The 4.3-star aggregate, the FRA Food Hygiene finalist credential, the 140-cover Sunday roast, the Buckingham Palace recognition, all of it is invisible to anything that is not a human scrolling slowly. The competitor with worse food and a better-configured Yoast plugin wins the AI-answer slot.
Cause
Shopify base theme ships no JSON-LD beyond minimal Product/Organization at e-commerce checkout. The structured-data layer for a destination-retail business has never been authored.
After rebuild
After rebuild: Astro-built static page with GroceryStore + FoodEstablishment + LocalBusiness + Person (Billy, Caroline, Harry, Rose) + FAQPage + AggregateRating + Restaurant (Courtyard Kitchen) generated at build time. Per-page og:image pointing at the new shop hero. Hexham/Corbridge area-served entries so "farm shop Hexham" and "farm shop Corbridge" both surface.
03

The named producers and head counters behind the 2024 rebuild appear nowhere on the public site.

Observation
Daniel Burton runs the butchery, 22 years in the trade, sourcing beef from two specifically-named local farms: Walwick Grange (Jeff and Laura) and Little Whittington (Philip Nixon). Katie Livingstone-Evans Lowes joined as deli manager in May 2024 and oversees the cheese counter and charcuterie. Rose Dickinson, the current owner-director alongside her mother-in-law Caroline, told Appetite Magazine in September 2024 the new Brocksbushes "is still very much a family-run North East farm shop". All of that is in the press archive. None of it is on the homepage, the /pages/farm-shop page, or the butchery collection page. The current /pages/farm-shop names some staff (Gary, Jane, Debbie, Margaret) but none of the named local suppliers.
Revenue impact
The trust signal that closes a farm-shop sale at the price point Brocksbushes commands is not "locally sourced". It is "from Jeff and Laura at Walwick Grange, butchered by Daniel who has 22 years in the trade". The press tells that story already. The site does not. The premium the new build justifies is being asked of the customer without showing the working.
Cause
The new-build copy was written in 2024 to launch the Play Barn and the Courtyard Kitchen. Supplier and counter-staff naming was treated as press-release detail rather than site copy.
After rebuild
The rebuild surfaces Daniel Burton, Walwick Grange (Jeff and Laura), Little Whittington (Philip Nixon), Katie Livingstone-Evans Lowes by name in a dedicated four-counter section. Each counter card carries the named lead, the named suppliers behind it, and the named provenance specifics (22 years in the trade, May 2024 deli rework, 300,000 strawberry plants on 36 football pitches). Person schema on each.
Current vs proposed

A side-by-side of the current stack against the proposed rebuild.

Current ↗ brocksbushes.co.uk
Platform
Shopify base theme + carousel hero (Play Barn)
Hosting
Shopify hosted, CDN-backed but theme-heavy on first paint
Mobile UX
Carousel hero with multi-srcset Farm_shop_header.jpg, no heritage above fold
Heritage
Buried three clicks deep at /pages/about-us
Named producers
Daniel Burton, Walwick Grange, Little Whittington not on the public site
SEO schema
No GroceryStore, no LocalBusiness, no FAQ, no AggregateRating, no Person
OG image
Sitewide Shopify_image.jpg default, not a 2024 farm-shop hero
Proposed
Framework
Astro 6 static site, no framework JS on first paint
Hosting
Vercel edge, sub-100ms first byte across the UK
Mobile UX
Single hero photo, family-led H1, named-supplier counter grid
Heritage
1979 to 2024 timeline above the fold of a dedicated section
Named producers
Walwick Grange + Little Whittington + Daniel Burton on the counter cards
SEO schema
GroceryStore + Restaurant + LocalBusiness + Person + FAQ + AggregateRating at build time
OG image
Per-page og:image of the new 2024 shop and the Dickinson family
Pricing

Fixed price. No hourly billing. No surprise upgrade tier.

£2,000  Fixed for the rebuild, one-off.
£150    Per month for hosting and ongoing care.
£50     Optional. Embedded chatbot trained on FAQs.

No retainer. No contract. No in-person visits, fully remote from Switzerland.

  • • One round of revisions before launch
  • • DNS cutover handled (you keep the domain in your name)
  • • 30 days of post-launch tweaks at no extra cost
  • • Source code handed over on day 60 (you own everything)
Close

If the proposal lands, reply with two or three 20-minute slots in the next ten days for a video call. I take on three North East builds this quarter, and first confirmed wins the slot. If I do not hear back by 29 May 2026, the proposal site comes down.

See the live rebuild

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