MOST villages are lucky if they can manage one shop, a newsagent or mini-market. Staindrop goes one better - it has the Village China Shop.

But it's a shop run with a difference. Well, two actually.

Firstly, everything in the shop is made by one manufacturer _ Limoges. Secondly, apart from the gift collection, everything is white. The wildest colour you can find might be a discreet gold rim or blue ring.

Henry Ford sold his cars on the basis of any colour you like, as long as it was black. Glenna Murray's similar philosophy in white could be just as successful.

There has been a china shop in Staindrop for many years. The previous owner had a popular business selling a wide range of English china and porcelain. When she retired, the shop closed and Glenna and her partner bought the house with no intention other than living in it.

"But my partner's mother, Pauline Heartfield, lives in France, very near to the Limoges porcelain factory. I just love Limoges. Every time we went over I would go to the factory and buy something and one day David said: "At this rate, you might as well open the china shop again'. And I thought why not?"

So now what was a small front room is now a shop devoted to the white Limoges ware.

"I used to come into the shop a lot when Mrs Parnaby had it," says Glenna, whose previous career involved farming, and breeding horses.

"She was a hard act to follow. But she knew the English manufacturers very well and I have a similarly good relationship with Limoges. I love the plain white and the joy of it is that you know the glaze and colour is always going to be the same. It will always match."

The all white shop is going well, "A few people have come in and been a bit disappointed that we're not doing the same as the old shop, but most people are just pleased to find something different. After all, there are plenty of places where you can buy English china, but one devoted to Limoges is rare."

Every time the couple go over to France, they come back with the car laden down.

"And at Christmas we had a run on one of our popular lines and had to re-stock quickly, so when Pauline came over to stay, her hand luggage was absolutely weighed down with cow creamers," says Glenna.

Glenna has kept with the fairly traditional ranges _ Le Petit Dejeuner breakfast ware, Classique and some of Japanese influenced pieces. Prices in the Classique range include £7.20 for a 12 inch dinner plate, £2.90 for a dessert bowl.

There is also a big range of small jugs, trinket boxes and dishes. Beautiful little leaf-shaped dishes go from tiny enough for a butter pat at £1.90 to small serving dish size at £6.50. There are egg cups, pestles and mortars, gravy jugs, juicers and, of course, all those cow creamers.

The floor of the shop is flagstones which seems to invite trouble for a china shop.

"Not at all," says Glenna. "For something which looks so delicate, Limoges is quite robust. We've only broken one small piece since we've been here."

Although the shop stocks only the white porcelain, Glenna can get special orders done. "A customer had a beautiful old English dinner service but had broken all the plates. I managed to get Limoges to hand paint the design for her on a replacement set. They are a small, traditional factory and it is sometimes possible to arrange things like that."

The gift range is a splash of colour in the shop. Tiny boxes that include little prams, bootees, ladybirds to the incredibly detailed work of a fishing rod and reel, a pair of guns, mini champagne bottles in ice buckets, elaborately painted tiny porcelain birthday cakes.

"I've watched the ladies painting them. The work's so delicate that the artists do much of it with a trimmed down feather."

There are advantages to having a china shop in the middle of a village. "You park right outside so you're not carrying heavy boxes all the way to a car park. And people like to combine it with a trip out. They'll visit Raby or the Bowes Museum and call here, have a stroll around and call in at the tea room.

"Really, a village is an ideal place for a china shop."

* The Village China Shop, 13 Front Street, Staindrop (01833) 660880 Open 9.30-5.30, Mon-Sat; 11am -4pm Sundays.

www.thevillagechinashop.co.uk