The world famous Oldest Sweet Shop first opened its doors in 1827 and today is still selling and delivering quality traditional sweets and chocolates.
From traditional old fashioned sweets such as humbugs, aniseed balls, pear drops, jelly babies to more recent additions “retro sweets” including cola bottles, popping candy and kola cubes.
History of the Oldest Sweet Shop
Established in 1827 in the historic and vibrant town of Pateley Bridge in Nidderdale part of the Yorkshire Dales, the Oldest Sweet Shop began selling sweets and luxury chocolates, such as boiled sweets, toffees, herbal & spicy sweets originally prepared, boiled and made within the sweet shop.
Frequented by local mill owners, quarry workers and labourers building the local reservoirs and of course children, all spending their hard earned half penny in our shop. Our shop in Pateley became a corner stone of the local community, a town bustling with busy mills, quarries and breweries at the height of the industrial revolution. With the industrial revolution came the invention of solid chocolate - J. S. Fry’s & Sons and Cadbury’s led the way with the first British chocolate bars while many sweets we take for granted today where invented and quickly became marvels of the new era in confectionery. The Oldest Sweet Shop being a pioneer in selling confectionery must have seemed like Willy Wonker alchemy with its jars of sweets and strong boiled sweets and toffee smells. It is no wonder the Oldest Sweet Shop became popular and world renowned.
In the early 20th Century chocolate entered a new renaissance, truffles and other European styled chocolates became more popular in England. With chocolatiers like Whitaker’s of North Yorkshire and Thorntons Of West Yorkshire refining and crafting their legacy the Oldest Sweet Shop was able to sell a selection of the finest British chocolate at that time.
During the First and Second World War confectionery as general became a rare and very much a luxury commodity. This was more so during the Second World War due to rationing - but the Oldest sweet Shop carried on selling sweets such as Liquorice Root Sticks, Cinder Toffee and more importantly kept morale up for the many brave young children who had been evacuated to nearby Bewerley Park for safety. Many still visit us today with fond memories and stories to tell.
After the 1950’s sweets became more popular than ever. With advances in production techniques and the discovery of new flavours and ingredients sweets also entered a new renaissance. Black Jacks, Fruit Salads, Refreshers, Kola Cubes and Whams but a few that we now refer to as ‘retro’.
Come the 80’s and 90’s the number of sweet shops began to decline due to supermarkets opening across the country with sweets and all the weekly shop in one convenient place but also the advent of pre-bagged sweets which was easier to stock and more profitable - shops replaced the traditional glass jars with rows of plastic bags. The Oldest Sweet Shop however continued with tradition, keeping the glass jars (which are still used today of course – those that haven’t been broken!)
Today the Oldest Sweet Shop is fortunately as busy as ever with old fashioned sweets and the rows of glass jars becoming vogue again with small sweet shops opening up around the country – many of the owners come to our shop as a pilgrimage. All this shows the role and the institution sweets shops have been and still are in England. Fond memories and close to our hearts the Oldest Sweet Shop is a true piece of living history and a “National Treasure” as declared by the Daily Mail!
-----This information is from the oldest Sweet Shop's website
If you want to listen to our past audios, please type the keyword with the “month+date”, for example type “0813”to get an audio posted on August 18th.
如果您希望收听历史语音,回复“月份+日期”四位数获取对应日期的语音,如0813对应8月13日的语音以及对应的文本。
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