The Mushroom Farm site is located on the old working Chef Mushroom Farm. The main shed housing the majority of retail units are converted mushroom growing sheds. While the smaller shed was a composting plant in its previous life. Today, however, it is quite hard to imagine that Country Chic's beautifully decorated rooms were once filled to the brim with smelly compost and that the Peel's Honey Shop housed the staff toilets and change rooms. The first shop on the site was the Chef Mushroom Farmstall which sold wholesale mushrooms to the public. The Mushroom Shop and Nursery was then followed by Garden Decor and The Veggie Shop and out of this small group of traders a centre "mushroomed". Today the centre is home to an array of carefully selected shops. There are not many places in the bustling highway area where you can have an award winning cup of coffee whilst picking up fencing poles and fertiliser, or having your television fixed but at The Mushroom Farm you can do all of this all the while having a chicken pecking at your feet. Efforts have been made to create an environment which appeals to both local highway residents as well as meanderers from further afield who are looking for an outing on the weekends. The centre is not only home to a group of enthusiastic traders but it is also home to an ever growing animal farmyard. Valentino the Cameroonian Goat rules the farmyard from atop his pile of rocks which have been aptly named Goat Mountain. His subjects include a menagerie of ducks, chickens, guinea fowl and rabbits! There have been a number of great escapes by the rabbits and as a result, you will often come across a rabbit or two while you walk through the rose nursery. In line with the farm life, horse boxes and riders are also a common sight, as equestrians pop in and out of the centre to pick up feed or tack or sometimes both!
