There's a quiet revolution happening at Briscombe Mill guaranteed to restore your faith in humanity
If you feel the need to restore your faith in the world, there’s no better place to go than The Long Table in Brimscombe Mill, Stroud. Here, you’ll find a fabulous dining area serving delicious, local, lovingly sourced food.
Yet this pay-as-you-can venue is not just about eating; it’s about everything that eating – and especially eating together – can do for humanity. ‘When you make food available to everyone, without judgment, at the point of access, you create something that is of, and for, the community,’ says Tom Herbert, who co-founded this social enterprise alongside Will Mansell of The Grace Network.
The principles of sustainability, regeneration, social inclusion, and access to opportunity define all they do. The kitchen helps train people - otherwise excluded from employment - into productive careers. What’s more, they can become joint owners of the business. ‘Our name comes from an old saying: If you have more than enough, build longer tables not higher walls,’ Tom says.
The Long Table supporters include high-street guru Mary Portas and Gloucester’s Bishop Rachel. What’s more, when the enterprise was threatened with eviction earlier this year, more than 3,000 people signed an on-line petition.
Everyone and anyone is actively welcomed: ‘Every meal at The Long Table is a vote for positive change. So you only have to eat here to be part of it – there is no bar to entry.’
Tom, whose family owns Hobbs House Bakery, is married to Anna; they have four children.
Tom, where do you live and why?
I live in Horsley [a village near Nailsworth]. When Anna and I got married 25 years ago, she worked in Stroud; I worked in Hobbs House Bakery, Chipping Sodbury; Horsley is between the two. We found a place we could afford – before the housing boom – and Horsley has become our community. The village has a lively village shop, pub, playground and school, and an orchard. On May Day, a load of us went for a walk, as the sun was heating the dew on the grass, and had a shared breakfast.
How long have you lived in the Cotswolds?
I was brought up in Chipping Sodbury – Cotswold-ish - the eldest of six. Mealtimes in our household became increasingly a fight for the best bits as more of us arrived! Every day was a celebration full of life and often joyful moments. We lived above the bakery and butchery in the High Street. My grandfather, David Herbert, grew and milled his own flour; we reared animals for the butchery. Where food comes from, and how it’s looked after, has always been of the utmost importance.
What's your idea of a perfect weekend in the Cotswolds?
Golden Valley CrossFit with Anna, first thing in the morning. Then it would be taking our daughter, Prudence, to work on the Hobbs stall at Stroud Farmers’ Market, followed by an affogato at Coco Caravan [Bedford Street]. I swear their hot chocolate is so good it’s medicinal… Getting a record from Sound Records; going for a swim somewhere outside with friends.
And then an evening at The Long Table. On a recent Saturday night, we had 70 people coming from Nailsworth-Lèves twinning. Nailsworth Silver Band played, followed by Albino Tarantino, an amazing local band that will get anyone dancing. There are never any bookings here – it’s first come, first served.
On a Sunday morning, brunch with friends or family is my absolute favourite, followed by a lovely walk. It’s so lush where we live, it would be rude not to enjoy and share it.
If money were no object, where would you live in the Cotswolds?
I’d love a new house that wasn’t prone to asthma-triggering mold! My dream would be to build a LIVEDIN self-build [St Mary’s Mill, Chalford] as part of a community like the one we have at Brimscombe Mill. I’ve come to see that, if we can downsize while our kids are young enough, they can benefit from early pay-it-forward.
Where are you least likely to live in the Cotswolds?
Somewhere just for weekenders.
Where's the best pub in the area?
The Ship Inn [Brimscombe] next door. Wes Birch and his family have taken it on. He’s a community guy; hugely skilled and passionate. How fortunate we are to have it on our doorstep.
And the best place to eat?
At The Long Table. We have a saying: Amazing things happen when we eat together. We have Mo working here, whose position is paid for by Barnwood Trust charity. We have 10 placements a year for people coming out of long-term unemployment. Young Owen came through our Teenage Kitchen programme: his mum brought him in by the scruff of his hoodie a few years ago. He now is 20 and teaches Teenage Kitchen. His ambition is to share what this has meant to him with other teenagers. This is why I do it. It’s about the people. I love it.
What would you do for a special occasion?
I’m marrying a young couple here in the summer, who both work for the Door [a Stroud youth charity] and love what we do. They don’t have the means to get married in a traditional, commercial way. So they’re bringing their celebration here. They’ll decorate the space; we’re paying for the band; people will be able to put money behind the bar for them.
You can’t book The Long Table out; it will be open to everyone. But who doesn’t mind accidentally going to a wedding!
What's the best thing about the Cotswolds?
The Frome, the river we have running past Brimscombe Mill, which also runs past Hobbs in Nailsworth. There must be something in the water! It used to connect the Americas with London, via the canals, opening Stroud up to the wider world. Perhaps that’s why people here are so open and outward-looking, passionate about social justice and environmental issues. I don’t think The Long Table could have been born anywhere else.
... and the worst?
How lonely and hard life is for so many people; and that houses are so expensive.
Which shop could you not live without?
We’re opening ‘Monastery & Co’, in the old House of Fraser store in Cirencester this summer. It’s been empty for five years, but ours will be a department store of the future: owned by the community; celebrating the best Cirencester has to offer; a place of refuge and hope for those in need; and a tremendous place for tourists wanting a taste of the Cotswolds. Just like Brimscombe Mill, it will host a Long Table; Kids Stuff; Furniture Bank and Bike Drop [fellow social enterprises, run by The Grace Network].
What's the most underrated thing about the Cotswolds?
The ability of a social enterprise to be commercially viable. We all pay ourselves living wage or more: that’s 56 of us at Brimscombe Mill, and we’re hoping to create another 50 jobs in Cirencester. We already have about 30 jobs up at Aston Down where we run the Great Plate, our school dinner business. We do have some funding – and gladly so – including significant investment from the Church of England. Bishop Rachel has been a huge supporter from the start, and has paid some of my salary when times have been hard. But 87 percent of everything we’ve done has been on traded income.
What is a person from the Cotswolds called?
Friend. (This might be a cheeky thing to say, but you can also become a Friend of the Long Table to participate in our work: https://www.thelongtableonline.com/donate)
What would be a three-course Cotswold meal?
For us, every meal starts with sourcing: we have two brilliant people, Emma and Alex, specifically charged with food resilience. We support the local food economy, and we want to be proactive in the regeneration movement in our district (growing food via minimal input; working with nature). The meals we cook are for the community, which is to say free of most allergens, gluten-free and vegan. But we build it in such a way that you can add local meat in, or a bread option, or our own hot sauce.
This year, we’ve partnered with Good Small Farms, who are growing a couple of acres of veg and salads specifically for The Long Table. We get organic mutton (affordable, and delicious when you cook it well) from Stroud Slad Farm. We buy whole cows from the National Trust’s Rodborough herd – part of their rewilding. The last one was 11 years old, had had 10 calves, and was at the end of her life. And the pig is Old Spot pork from Wick Court in Arlingham, part of the Michael Morpurgo charity, Farms for City Children.
What's your favourite view in the Cotswolds?
When The Long Table is full and alive. I don’t think there’s a more diverse group of people sitting and eating together anywhere. It gives me hope: the hum and buzz of that is what feeds me.
Name three basic elements of the Cotswolds…
Radical hospitality;
Social justice;
A Laurie Lee-type fun: cider and celebration.
What's your favourite Cotswolds building and why?
Brimscombe Mill, where we’ve been based for coming-up three years. Look at it – a beautiful red-brick Victorian industrial building, with the kind of detail (lovely arched windows) that seems frankly frivolous for an industrial space these days. For 30 years, it was left to rot: roof falling in; derelict. A place where people rough-slept. A place where doves have made their home. Where local youngsters, who don’t have youth facilities any more, would hang out and have their parties. And I feel that - without excluding anyone, with the help of our community - the old bones have been brought vividly and joyfully back to life. And we’ve so far still to go with it.
What would you never do in the Cotswolds?
Turn anyone away who needed a meal.
Starter homes or executive properties?
In my mind, there’s something way more valuable than shiny executive homes - and that’s community. To be known by people that live around you; to have people care about how you like your coffee, or notice when you need the bins putting out. As we age and ache, to have people going out of their way to come alongside us. To have people who live nearby remember and join in our birthday.
What are the four corners of the Cotswolds?
Brimscombe Mill, Cirencester, Chipping Sodbury where I came from, and Malmesbury.
Malmesbury because our daughter, Josephine, is at sixth-form there; and because our beautiful sculpture, ‘Wonder’, made by Tom Lawton, was first shown at an exhibition at Malmesbury Abbey. He gifted it to go in our Sanctuary as a contemplative piece.
If you lived abroad, what would you take to remind you of the Cotswolds?
Anna.
What's the first piece of advice you'd give to somebody new to the Cotswolds?
Come and eat with us.
And which book should they read?
It’s a poem by Stroud poet Adam Horowitz, set to music by Cerys Matthews: A House Built From Cloth.
Have you a favourite Cotswolds walk?
The Cotswold Way. We did it as a family, in little chunks during Covid, whilst teaching Bea to drive. We just loved it.
If you were invisible for a day, where would you go and what would you do?
I’d go somewhere industrial and observe things being made by skillful craftspeople – people who make the Cotswolds - in a way that isn’t intrusive. To observe in a way that you never could if a camera was on. Perhaps because people remember I’ve been on TV [Channel 4 and Discovery’s Fabulous Baker Brothers, with his brother Henry], people come to The Long Table and say, ‘This would make a brilliant fly-on-the-wall documentary. So many characters!’ But I know the moment you put a camera on, people either play up or they close up. I love seeing life happen for real.
To whom or what should there be a Cotswolds memorial?
To Svitlana, who escaped Ukraine. She does the washing up and clearing up here at The Long Table, and brings hospitality even without being able to speak much English. When people - their brothers fighting a war that seems helpless and impossible - come and join with our work… Wow… I would make a statue of her and say, ‘These buildings, this place, community is made of such as these.’
Which attitude best sums up the Cotswolds?
At The Long Table, you never know who you’re going to sit next to. It could be a bishop, a billionaire, a busker, a builder. Everyone has a story worth hearing, and there’s always something to learn from each other.
With whom would you most like to have a cider?
Laurie Lee. As I Walked Out is one of my favourite books. I’d love to learn more about how a guy can set out from the Cotswolds, on foot, with just a violin - and end up being involved in the Spanish Civil War. Amazing.
The Long Table is at Brimscombe Mill, Brimscombe, Stroud GL5 2QN: thelongtableonline.com
