Chocolate delight at hidden gem of specialist workshop
IN 1980 the Burton Mail was invited to tour the intricacies of a hidden chocolate factory off the main road, in Alrewas.
Tucked away between two timber-clad cottages in Main Street was Tudor Chocolates – the makers of some of the finest confectionery in England.
Only a handful of people worked at the factory and their strange machinery enabled them to produce anything from 30lb boxes of fondant creams through to 20lb decorative eggs.
Business manager Adam Burns-Mace said that by remaining small the firm could produce higher quality goods while retaining flexibility.
The structures of mass-production were shunned as most of the process was hand-finished enabling them to recreate chocolate top hats and replica wedding cakes.
The chocolate itself was not made on the premises, this arrived by the sackful in the form of chips.
These chips were then melted down before being weighed and squirted into moulds either made of tin or perspex.
The process of obtaining a perfect thickness of chocolate in the mould was down to an invention created by Mr Burns-Mace’s grandfather, Mr Matthews.
The original invention was built from a tennis net post, wheels from a war-time bomb trolley and bed rings.
The ingenious contraption twisted the moulds through every direction to achieve a perfect thickness of chocolate before being cooled.
The main outlet at the time for the chocolate was through another family member, Jeffery Burns-Mace, who owned the Tudor Cafe, in Lichfield.
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