Golden Square shop Plumes Emporium closing down after Proteas Direct buys out lease

It comes after Peter Wilmott, head of the leasing committee and owner of Wilmott Trading which takes up 40 per cent of the Plumes' floor space, put the store up for sale in July last year.

Plumes Emporium has operated at 284-288 High Street, Golden Square since 2019 when Wilmott Trading and 40 other small businesses decided to lease one building and operate all stalls out of it.

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Mr Wilmott said he and his wife Marlene initially agreed to take on the majority of the lease for three years, putting in a massive effort to get the shop up to standard.

"We've now been here a year longer than we had intended to be," he said.

"What's happened is someone's come along that actually wants the premises, so they're quite happy to buy us out of our lease."

Wilmott Trading is a retailer of gourmet food products and confectionary, while many of the other Plumes stallholders are makers, crafters and collectors.

Seasonal flower shop Proteas Direct will take over the space, however My Wilmott said there was potential for certain stallholders to remain.

Mr Wilmott and his wife were semi-retired before taking on the management of Plumes, and he's looking forward to having a bit of flexibility in his life.

"We'll go back to part-time ... and trading a bit at weekly markets which are a lot more flexible, a lot less commitment," he said.

"We'll try to get to Queensland and see our grandkids [who] we haven't seen much of in the past four years."

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There's feelings of sadness among retailers, however they were kept well-informed of the plans to sell, Mr Wilmott said.

One of his highlights has been seeing Golden Square come to life, and bringing business to the other side of High Street.

"I think we've certainly got a lot of people back into the area," Mr Wilmott said.

"This building had a fairly checkered past, a lot of short-term people here, so the fact that we've gone almost four years is probably a good thing and shows that people are aware of it now and seeing the benefits of being out a little bit.

"[We've] seen some of the smaller businesses grow - they'd definitely be stronger now than what they were when they came in."

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