The Blue Pool Nature Reserve & Tearooms was established in 1935 on the Furzebrook Estate in the Isle of Purbeck, Dorset, with the flooding of the Purbeck ball clay mine that was previously on the site.
The clay is famous for its blue hue – hence the pool’s colour and name. For years, it was just ‘The Blue Pool Tearooms’, and somewhere that Matthew Jones and wife Julie spent time as customers.
Matthew already owned another local business in nearby Wareham, so when the tea rooms came on the market, he jumped at the chance. “It was a once in a lifetime opportunity,” he says. “We grasped it with both hands and never looked back.”
His background in real estate and financial services meant he immediately recognised what was so unique about The Blue Pool. “The mine was a man-made landscape, but nature has recaptured it,” he says. “It means it’s unfarmable, but that makes it a specialist landscape in an unusual area.”
For him, The Blue Pool is “a business at its heart, nature at its core.”
This is why Matthew changed the name to The Blue Pool Nature Reserve & Tearooms. This focus on nature has appealed to customers: “They want to be involved.”
To meet this increased interest in the business, Matthew needed to address the fact that it had previously been underfunded and the buildings had fallen into a state of disrepair. He originally approached another bank for a loan but they couldn’t support his business-specific needs.
He then turned to us. “We’ve seen people from Barclays, which has been nice,” he says. “They’re willing and prepared to come out and see us. That personal touch has won us over. We’re a big and growing business, but we don’t fit into a box. Barclays sees us in our uniqueness and has been prepared to invest time to get proper understanding of our business.”
This understanding has meant we’ve been able to help Matthew raise money for repairs, install eco-boilers, and turn the Victorian greenhouses on site into a garden centre.
“The funding Barclays provided has let us progress at a rate that we hadn’t originally hoped for,” says Matthew.
This, in turn, has led to the need for further expansion. The business used to be seasonal, but Matthew recognised his responsibility to providing his employees with year-round employment.
The Blue Pool now puts on events at Halloween and Christmas, and is looking to redevelop its unpaved carpark to make it useable during wetter periods.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The Blue Pool is “a business at its heart, nature at its core.”
-Matthew Jones, The Blue Pool Nature Reserve & Tearooms, 2024