No small success: Miniatures business bucks lockdown trend

Pauline Millard looks through the window of a miniature village shop and post office

One very small business based in rural North Yorkshire has bucked the national trend and thrived through lockdown - more than doubling its sales of handheld miniatures.

Pauline Millard, who is based in Weaverthorpe, between Malton and Scarborough, has a vast collection of over 200,000 handmade miniatures, said: "I am not doing anything different, nothing I do has changed.

"The only thing that has is lockdown."

Her business, situated in the small Yorkshire Wolds village, has become an international centre for modelling and miniature hobbyists.

Ms Millard said many people were making a dolls' houses or miniature shops reflecting the 1960s and 1970s

Ms Millard said: "I think little is fascinating and people are fascinated with detail"

"A lot of people want to make a house like their mother's or grandmother's", said the owner

Ms Millard said: "I'm working 15 hours a day and not catching up.

"People want something to do, they need something to do or they will go stir crazy.

"Many of my customers are shielding and one said to me recently: 'I don't know where I'd be without your shop'."

The shop's male customers enjoy recreating miniature pubs and garages, said Ms Millard

Ms Millard said she felt sorry for businesses that had suffered in the coronavirus pandemic

Some of the handmade miniatures "can be quite expensive", said Ms Millard

The business has been going seven years and a lot of the stock is made by Ms Millard herself.

During the lockdown, international orders have also come in from as far afield as Australia, the United States and across Europe, she said.

"There's nothing else like this in Yorkshire", said the owner

The items for sale can recreate a world in miniature, like an artist's studio