The owners of a popular family business on the outskirts of Lisburn that was the scene of a devastating early morning fire a year ago made their long-awaited return this week.
The Herron family is “delighted” to have their team back together again and “beyond thrilled” to be welcoming back customers to Ashvale Farm Shop & Tea Room.
At the height of the blaze on the morning of Wednesday, February 9 2022, 41 firefighters were at the scene on Old Ballynahinch Road.
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The accidental blaze broke out in a storeroom of the business, which had only recently opened a new extension while work was also continuing on a planned new garden centre.
One year on, the business has quite literally risen from the ashes as it threw open its doors to customers for the first time earlier this week.
For the Herron family, while it has been a 12 month rollercoaster of emotions to reach this milestone, they say it's just great to be back.
Recalling the events of that fateful morning last year, Julie Herron from the business told Belfast Live: "I had actually slept in that morning and when I woke up I thought I heard a lorry reversing but when I looked out the window, to my horror, it wasn't the bleep of a lorry - it was the fire alarm going off.
"All I could see were flames coming from the back of the building, which was horrifying and very frightening. I ran down as quickly as I could but at that stage the fire had caught hold."
She added: "It was just devastating to stand and watch your business and livelihood crumble in front of your eyes. The forensic fire examiners later put the cause down to probable electrical as there was no real definite reason for why it had started.
"From my memory and all of the CCTV, the fire started in the apex of the store during the early hours of the morning. Most of the main structural damage was confined to the stores and kitchen at the back of the building.
"We were very fortunate that the actual tea room, new orangery and clothes shop were not affected too much and could be fixed up quite quickly."
In the aftermath of the fire, the Herron family, who have been in business for around 10 years, vowed to get back up and running as soon as possible and "build back better".
Julie added: "Because this is our livelihood we had to keep going. We had 34 staff who we wanted to keep so there were a lot of jobs depending on this building and it wasn't just about us.
"There were some very dark days along the way when we thought we'd never get to this day but we got there. We faced some delays in the rebuilding process with sourcing materials due to the war in Ukraine but we had a great bunch of faithful tradesmen who did a brilliant job and made our reopening possible.
"There's still some work to be done, for example our ladies fashion section is currently located in a temporary building and we're hoping to move that upstairs. The garden centre is also yet to be completed but our main focus was to get the staff and customers back and as the farm shop and tea room is the hub of it all."
"We're delighted to finally be back in business again after a year and it's lovely to be back. We opened the doors again on Wednesday morning, which was the actual day of the fire last year so it was almost a year to the day.
"We didn't advertise the reopening day too much and have just been easing ourselves back into it all again. It has been a long journey but we're just so pleased to be welcoming customers back again and there's a great buzz about the place already.
"We're all still a wee bit nervous because we haven't done all of this for a year so it feels a bit surreal but I think after a few more days it will be like we've never been away."
Video by Belfast Live videographer Dylan Hegarty.
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