THE OWNER of a popular gift and coffee shop in Thornbury has described its plans to reinvent itself after 44 years of trading like "emerging as a butterfly from a chrysalis".

Heritage in Thornbury, which reopened its shops on Thornbury High Street last year after being ravaged by fire in September 2015, will become Papilio at Heritage from October 1, with the two factors of the business becoming Papilio home and Papilio coffee.

The change has been made to encourage a new perspective of the business, with many visitors to the town still expecting to see historical and traditional stock, according to owner Tabi Marsh.

Papilio, which means butterfly, has a lot of sentimental meaning to Ms Marsh, who said the name “felt like it fitted with the journey the business has been through.”

“The last few years after the fire haven’t always been easy, our business interruption insurance period as a result of the fire finished in September this year.

“So whereas to many the fire is a distant memory for us it has definitely been dragging on.

“However, we have a beautiful building which everyone is loving and it’s given us the opportunity to look at things afresh and also improve the gift shop offering and display space.

“An example of this is the Belgian chocolate counter that we put in a few weeks ago which is already proving hugely popular.

“So the last two years have definitely been the caterpillar in the chrysalis with it now feeling liking we’re emerging as the butterfly.”

Ms Marsh said that having owned the business for almost four years, she hoped to have earned the trust of the townspeople to make the changes.

She added that by renaming the front shop Papilio home, it would move away from the gift shop image which she believed “doesn’t indicate the breadth of products in stock”.

“We know we will struggle to get rid of ‘Heritage’ completely,” she said, “so we are keeping that as the name of the building rather the business.

“We can now start to breathe again and put into place things we had planned prior to the fire and other ideas we’ve had since, so the business will continue to grow and be part of Thornbury.”

For more information, visit www.papilioatheritage.co.uk.