A Sweet Deal
The world’s oldest sweet shop, by Mairi Hughes
THE sight of shelves lined with a seemingly endless rainbow of confectionery and the sound of hard boiled sweets being scooped from glass jars, accompanied by a distinctive sugary aroma, is not something you come across often today.
However, you needn’t look further than Pateley Bridge’s High Street in Harrogate to discover just that: The Oldest Sweet Shop In The World has been nurturing the town’s sweet tooth for nearly two centuries. Selling confectionery since 1827, the shop was officially declared the oldest continuously trading sweet shop in the world by the Guinness World Book of Records in 2014.
While Pateley Bridge’s High Street has evolved somewhat since 1827, the quaint listed building which houses the iconic shop remains a constant, untouched by time. Providing an authentic experience of a good old-fashioned English sweet shop, it has become something of a national treasure. Summer days in Pateley Bridge often see queues snaking down the High Street with customers from near and far, all after a paper bag full of their favourite classic confectionery.
Last year, after nearly two decades in the shop, previous owners Keith and Gloria Tordoff put their business up for sale. Having received staggering offers from people around the world, they sold the shop to 24-year-old Ben Howie, who is now the proud owner of a business which is nearly nine times as old as him.
“What drew me in, really, was I wanted to preserve the history and the heritage of the shop,” Ben said.
Having been carefully selected by the Tordoffs for his interest in keeping the shop’s legacy alive, Ben is clued up on the history from first-hand experience. Being local to the area, he frequented the shop as a child.
“I just remember everything in abundance, sweets in abundance, as well as the things that you can’t really replicate with modern technology: the Bakelite lids screwed on to the jars, the Torpedoes hitting the Avery scales, weighed out in quarters or half pounds,”
Ben said.
Today, the sweet shop very much remains true to its original aesthetic, with customers being greeted by rows of glass jars and shiny scales, complemented by vintage confectionery posters. Ben has vowed the shop will preserve this feel during his ownership.
“That knowledge that has been passed to me and my team here, we want to pass to future employees and to customers. The customer is fascinated by the history, and my aim is to really educate customers, obviously if they want to be, on the background and the history and the making of sweets and the retail of sweets,” Ben said.
Like many sweet shops in this country, Pateley Bridge’s shop – pre 1827 – started life as an apothecary. Several classic sweets we know today have roots in apothecaries, initially sold with medicines to mellow the foul taste, or thought to have medicinal qualities themselves.
In the Tudor era, comfits made from fruit, roots, nuts or seeds coated in sugar, were famously sold in apothecaries across England as a cure for indigestion. This made the transition from apothecary to sweet shop a smooth one for many businesses. Today, Ben’s shop still sells locally manufactured liquorice comfits, now widely known as Torpedoes.
Yorkshire has a particularly rich history with manufacturing confectionery, which endures today.
“We’re quite fortunate in a way that Yorkshire has long been the home of sweets, with Pontefract Cakes and liquorice originating here.
“A lot of our makers really, really pride themselves on being from Yorkshire, and they sell not just nationally but worldwide, and they are experts in their field,” Ben said
The Yorkshire market town of Pontefract is historically known as the English home of liquorice. Thought to have been brought to England by crusaders returning from the Middle East around the 12th century, liquorice was originally grown in Pontefract by local monks. With the plant thriving in the deep local soil, liquorice was suddenly in abundance in Yorkshire, even the Pontefract Castle grounds were repurposed to grow liquorice, and soon the Pontefract Cake was born.
Manufactured in Yorkshire’s sweet factories, the “cakes” were small lozenges, each individually stamped with an emblem of Pontefract Castle. The cakes are still popular in Ben’s shop today.
“We’re fortunate that we can still source sweets in that kind of way, but it’s only through the heritage of the sweets that they’re still going within their historic premises,” Ben said.
In the sweet shop’s early days, in the midst of the Industrial Revolution, advancements in technology meant production of confectionery became more economical and sweets more commonplace. Boiled sweets were in their heyday, replacing the previously popular yet pricier crystallised fruits.
During this time, everything from boiled sweets to chocolates to toffees were made within the premises of the sweet shop in Pateley Bridge. While this is no longer the case, the shop stocks traditionally made sweets wherever they can.
“The nostalgia is not just within the shop, but within all of our sweets and our sweet makers. Many of their recipes have been passed down from generation to generation. They’re made in the traditional copper vats, copper boiled, and pressed in the traditional ways,” Ben said.
Whilst sweets manufactured traditionally are becoming increasingly harder to come by, they are loved as much as ever. All of the classic sweets sold in Pateley Bridge go down a treat with customers, with Ben’s personal favourite being the Yorkshire Mixture.
“With our more elderly demographic, they go back to their Sweet Peanuts, Sarsaparilla Drops or Coconut Mushrooms, whereas some of our younger customers go for Rhubarb and Custard Sticks, or softer sweets,” Ben said.
“It’s really amazing when you have someone’s grandparents coming in and saying, ‘Oh, I remember this sweet, I remember that sweet,’ and they’re bringing their grandchildren in to show them what a sweet shop used to be like.”
Throughout its lifespan, the sweet shop has served the town of Pateley Bridge and beyond. From its early days providing the local labourers building the town’s reservoirs with the first solid chocolate bars from Cadbury’s and Fry’s, to the children evacuated to the nearby Bewerley Park Camp during wartime, who feasted on Liquorice Root Sticks and Cinder Toffee.
Today’s clientele consists of both locals and those who have travelled from afar for a taste of nostalgia. Despite taking over the shop midpandemic, Ben has now well and truly learned the ropes and is seeing the gradual return of foot traffic after a long spell of being forced to remain closed to customers.
“We’ve seen visitors come back, mainly visitors that have been longing to visit during lockdown, and who have supported us online as well. It’s great to see people coming back and to see some smiling faces, or at least half of faces at the moment!” Ben said.
In these turbulent times, the nostalgia of snacking on a favourite sweet from childhood is perhaps more comforting than ever. Evidently the appeal of a classic sweet shop never dies.