Food, food and gingerbread

Saturday, 28 March 2009 17:44

Still moored at Market Drayton - a search for gingerbread!

Just to return to the subject of the Liverpool Canal Linkfor a minute of your time! There is much more information on this blog link if you look at the comments. Thanks Heather, many thanks Richard! More comments welcome!

Food is always a popular subject of ours and today we set off in search of Market Drayton gingerbread. Last night I found a brilliant blog that mentioned a shop in the town that still sold Billington's gingerbread, first made in 1817 by Mr Thomas. There were other rival makers too each having their own secret recipe.

William Chester, gingerbread maker in 1850

The brilliant thing about the blog by Bill Pearson is it has a map of all the shops that sell good local food across the country. You can click on the area and follow the links to his blog about the shop. As continual cruisers we have a unique opportunity to patronise some of these local shops in towns and villages that are "off the beaten track" and not necessarily visited by tourists. It is so important to support these traders, in preference to the multiples, otherwise we will lose them. I shall be using Bill's map as we travel to find as many of the shops as possible.

We walked into Market Drayton via the steps down by the aqueduct

This way takes you on a short country walk and then turning left at the end, into Great Hales Street, takes you into the town centre. It is much more pleasant than the walk from bridges 62 or 63.

According to Bill we had to look for the shop Hart to Hart. We remember buying gingerbread in a bakery somewhere off the High Street. We had a good wander around after a coffee and a lovely choc fudge cake (for the glutton - me!). We looked in the covered market - very disappointing - Wilkinson had the usual stuff, and finally found Morrisons at the edge of town! Quite a walk from the canal but near the bus station.

It was sad to see so many of the shops empty and the bakers we had visited was closed down, so no Billington's gingerbread. We were beginning to think that it was no longer available in the town so we went into the Olde Worlde Sweet Shop to indulge in some nostalgia in compensation. We succumbed to lemon sherbets and coconut mushrooms by the quarter and some maple and walnut fudge. Yummy!

We gave up on the gingerbread and made our way back to the canal the other way towards bridge 62 near our mooring. Suddenly I spotted Hart to Hart and joy - there was a small display of Billington's gingerbread in the window. Did we go in? Of course we did! We bought two of the larger boxes (yes, one for you Craig!) and got chatting to the proprietor.

She once had three shops and Hart to Hart was on the High Street. She is now "retired" and moved to Stafford Street as the rent and rates are much cheaper. She told us the history of Billington's. Here follows the dynastic succession!

The Billington's gingerbread has been made since the reign of George III. There is no reliable record who made it before 1817, but then a Mr Thomas owned the business and recipe. Mr Thomas handed the recipe to his nephew in 1829.

In turn the nephew, Mr W Harper handed it to his son, Mr E H Harper. He then passed it to his cousin Mr R Billington in 1864. It was then in the Billington family for two more generations, son and brother.

In 1937 the business was bought by  a Mr Haywood Hughes who then sold it to Mr M McCarthy in 1995 who then passed it to his son!

What a dynasty.

Mr Mark McCarthy now makes it in Yorkshire and has an arrangement with Hart to Hart, the only shop in Market Drayton who now sells it. So in the end we returned to the boat well satisfied that we had succeeded in our search and thoroughly explored Market Drayton! Phew!

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