Our pickles and pikelets went around the world Nostalgia
GLOUCESTER-MADE pickled onions were once exported all around the globe. The firm of John Stephens, Son and Co Ltd produced pickles, preserves, lemon curd, mincemeat, Bigarade marmalade and brewed malt vinegar from its factory on the corner of St Catherine’s Street and Hare Lane.
You can see some of the people who worked there in the photograph right, which appeared in a city guide of the early 1950s.
Known locally as Jammy Stephens, the firm was established in 1870 in premises that had previously been a tannery.
The founder John Stephens was born in Minsterworth in 1834. By the time he embarked upon his tasty business venture, he was living with his wife Cecilia, son Albert and three daughters at a house called Brooklands in Upton Lane, Barnwood.
The business must have been successful because within 10 years it employed more than 100 workers, the majority of them women.
As its products appealed so directly to the British palette, the company’s pickles and other traditional favourites found ready markets in all those areas of the world shaded red on the map to denote that they were part of the empire. Singapore, Malta, Malaysia, the West Indies, South Africa - wherever there were expats there were Gloucester-made pickles.
To transport its wares to British ports in readiness for export, the firm had its own fleet of railway wagons, which were built by the Gloucester Railway Carriage and Wagon Company.
By 1901 Stephens’ pickle works employed
around 400 people and the decision was made to form a limited company, described as “purveyors, packers, bottlers, and manufacturers of, or dealers in, pickles, jams, marmalade, fruits, sauces, soup, jellies, food stuffs, provisions, confectionery etc.”
Stephens’ fellow directors in the new company were Albert John Stephens, of 29 Denmark Road and Hubert Harry Stephens, of 13 Denmark Road. The registered office was The Vinegar
Works, Worcester Street. Just before the First World War John Stephens died, but the company remained in business until it was wound up in 1956.
In 2004 Kraft Foods, the corporate giant that until a few years ago had its UK headquarters in Bayshill Road, Cheltenham, sold its Bird’s Custard brand for £70 million.
Half a century earlier this well known dessert was being made in Gloucestershire at a factory in Ashchurch, next door to the railway station.
Custard powder was invented by the Birmingham scientist Alfred Bird because his wife, Elizabeth, was allergic to eggs. Consequently the pleasure of conventional custard was denied her, so her devoted husband applied himself to the creation of an egg free
version. He perfected the concoction in 1837 and Bird’s custard powder soon went into commercial production.
Alfred’s father was an accomplished astronomer and his son, also named Alfred, set the record for tricycling from Land’s End to John O’ Groats that remains intact to this day.
Bird’s custard powder was fantastically successful. By about 1900 a second factory was needed to keep pace with demand, which was bolstered in the First World War when tons of the tasty stuff were shipped off to comfort troops in the trenches.
Unfortunately, the Second World War had the opposite effect. With virtually every foodstuff on ration Mr Bird’s invention became a casualty of war and the Ashchurch factory closed in the late 1940s.
Do you say pikelet or crumpet? Despite the fact that Tilley’s crumpets were made in Cheltenham, most people in the town called them pikelets.
It’s a word rarely heard today with a history that delves deep into the past.
These tasty toasties are made from a thick yeast batter cooked in rings on a griddle. The result is chewy, flat and bread-like with holes to soak up butter, or whatever is spread on top. The underside is blackened from being in contact with the griddle.
We know the delicacies were eaten in Celtic times, because in Welsh and Cornish they’re called “bara” (bread) “pyglyd” (meaning pitchy, or burned). Pyglyd anglicised into pikelet.
Crumpet derives from 14th century English. “Crompid” (meaning crooked) cakes were made from the same mixture and in the same way as Celtic pikelets, but so named because they curled up at the edges.
So there you are. Two words for the same thing, one Celtic, the other English, and either way delicious, especially with melted cheese and Marmite.
Tilley’s crumpets were made in Bath Road, Cheltenham for 60 years. Special trains loaded with crumpets left Lansdown Station two or three times a week, taking them to shops, cafes and restaurants all over the country.
But following a dispute between the family-run company, the TGWU and the Bakers’ Union, the firm closed in June 1977.