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photos at Provincial Bakeries
This photo is of the Linden Bakery
Scottish Fruit Slice Line taken in 1974.
It shows Hugh Forest (left) and John Davey
unrolling yards of pastry for this
product. The man in the cap is # Ure
Department Manager.
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Taken in 1979
this shows the finishing touch to the
manufacture of Sponge Oysters. They were
introduced in March 1979 to a number of
freezer centres as a new addition to Lyons
frozen cake range. They were a
finger-shaped cake sliced down the middle
with a layer of mixed fruit and jam and a
light whipped filling topped with a glace
cherry and packed 5 to a box. These were
only made at Linden Bakery, Glasgow.The
girls are Pat McLaughlin (left), Rose
Livingston (centre) and Jackie
Douglas.
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Linden
Bakery. Making Treacle Scones in 1976. On
the right is Foreman Pat Hughes and
Alastair Harper making Treacle
Scones.
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Wakefield
Bakery - Engineer's workshop.
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Eastleigh
Bakery - 'Ovenman P. Gordon puts trays of
baked finger rolls to cool after they've
left the oven'.
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......Provincial...Bakeries........
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Provincial Bakeries
The
history of the Provincial Bakeries, or satellite
bakeries as they were sometimes known, has not been
widely recorded and there is a paucity of
information in the imperfect records which do
exist. The emergence of these small bakeries came
about initially to satisfy the growing number of
teashops which were opening around the country in
the first part of the twentieth century. Supplying
these with food products from Cadby Hall was
becoming troublesome and so management decided to
open smaller satellite bakeries, often in the
larger teashops themselves, to supply them with
some of their requirements. This ensured freshness
of product and had the added benefit of reducing
transportation costs from London and other large
centres.
Fundamentally
there were three distinct groups of provincial
bakeries: 1) Those pre-war provincial bakeries
supplying teashops; 2) Cake production bakeries
supplying the Lyons cake sales nationally located
at Bristol, Oxford, Smethwick, Wakefield, Hove,
Birmingham, Glasgow and Cadby Hall; 3). Bread
production bakeries which were originally part of
Lyons Bakery but which, in 1963, were formed into a
separate trading entity known as Lyons Bread
Division.Each provincial bakery had a similar
organisation; a General Manager with sales,
Production and Engineering departments plus a local
accountant and administration office. Marketing,
National Accounts, Technical and Central Accounts
were provided by a small head office based at Cadby
Hall. Decentralisation of control was needed
because bread production and sales/deliveries were
needed on a daily basis and this could only be
achieved from local centres.
The
first provincial bakery opened at 45 High Street,
Sheffield, in the teashop known as PA (Provincial
'A') in about 1905. This was the first provincial
teashop (teashops outside London) to have opened
and the bakery there serviced the two teashops in
Sheffield namely, 45 High Street (opened in 1900)
and 2 Pinstone Street (opened in 1907). Shortly
afterwards provincial bakeries opened at Liverpool,
Bristol, Leeds, Birmingham, Manchester, Bradford
and Nottingham and so the Provincial Bakeries
Department was born. Apart from Sheffield the
opening times of most of the provincial bakeries
are not known. It is known, however, that the
Liverpool Bakery came into the Group when Lyons
acquired the Ceylon Café Company in 1909.
This was situated in Lime Street, Liverpool, and
the cakes and produce made there used Irish eggs
and butter. The Ceylon Café Company also had
a number of teashops in the Leeds and Liverpool
areas, which were converted to Lyons teashops and
it is possible one or more of these may have had a
bakery associated with it.
There
was little in the way of automation in those days
and batters and mixtures were made by hand. One of
the first baking managers at Liverpool was Jack
Stall; his family would clock up collectively
nearly 400 years of service with the company with
at least three of them serving long periods with
the Provincial Bakery Department (Jack, Frank and
Henry). The original Frank Stall, from whom the all
the Stall's and Bents originated, was foreman of
the Vienna Bakery at Cadby Hall in 1895.
During
the Second World War most of the provincial
bakeries, then in being, participated in the
government's Rural Pie Scheme. The government
originally intended to allocate rationed raw
materials such as fat, sugar and flour to the
Women's Voluntary Service (WVS) so that their
organisation would be responsible for the pie
making. It soon became apparent that their
organisation, proficient as it was, was woefully
ill-equipped to handle such an undertaking. Their
allocations of food was subsequently allocated to
the large baking companies and, in the case of
Lyons, the business of baking pies was distributed
between the Cadby Hall (Henry Telfer, Fulham) and
the provincial bakeries thus making their
availability more geographically organised. This
saved on transportation which during the war years
became progressively severe. The following is a
list of all known provincial bakeries, in
alphabetical order, and brief features of known
information.
Banbury Bread Depot
This
was just a distribution centre with supplies
delivered from Cadby Hall every day including
weekends. No production was carried out. The depot
served the areas of Evesham, Stratford-on-Avon,
Leamington Spa, Aylesbury and Henley-on-Thames. The
depot was established in 1966 and in 1970 had a
staff of 37.
Bradford Bakery
It
is thought that the Bradford Bakery was situated in
the teashop at 57 Market Street which opened in
1907. It probably provided bakery goods for the
teashop which closed in 1928. See also entry for
Manchester.
Bristol/Brislington Bakery
The
Bristol Bakery despatch, as it was originally
known, became a Bread Bakery when production at
Felix Road commenced on 22 May 1950 and it was here
where Lyons' Superbread was made. It was equipped
with the most up-to-date plant, including a slicing
and wrapping machine capable of handling 2,000
loaves per hour. A feature of the new plant was
that it enabled the company to supply Superbread
outside the London area for the first time and it
was expected that a production of 25,000 quarterns
per week would be achieved. The bread was
distributed by a fleet of roundsmen's vans
operating from a depot attached to the bakery.
Superbread became the dominant bread in the Bristol
area and the bakery became a very profitable unit.
A cake bakery followed and was situated at Redcross
Street where Swiss rolls, Baby Rolls, Trifle
Sponges and Jam Sandwiches (cakes) were made. In
1957 the bakeries moved to new premises on the
Brislington Trading Estate (to the south-east of
Bristol centre) and became known as Brislington
Bakery. This was mainly a bread bakery plant but
cake products included Frostie Cakes. In 1968 their
English/Vienna bakery was re-equipped with new
baking machinery at a cost of £60,000. Added
to this was a sum of £30,000 for extensions to
the administrative block which were completed in
August 1968. The investment became necessary to
meet the increased demand for buns, rolls and other
goods in the West Country and Birmingham areas.
Work on the project started in October 1967 and not
only involved the introduction of an automatic roll
plant and a new double-deck oven, but the
re-designing of the whole bakery layout. Henry
Stall was the Unit's Production Manager at this
time and his equipment produced 8,000 items per
hour. The new double-deck tunnel, which replaced an
earlier reel oven, was new to the Bread Division
and Bristol were the first in Lyons to use it. One
of the double-deck oven's features was the ability
to handle different products simultaneously. Its
capacity was 42 trays per deck with each tray
holding between 35 and 40 pieces, and it took
approximately 6.5 minutes to bake. To produce its
weekly total of nearly half a million fruit &
currant buns, country baps, super rolls, finger
rolls and crusty rolls the bakery consumed 22 tons
of flour and 30 cwt of sugar a week. The extension
to the factory enabled the management to restart
factory tours which had been curtailed because of
the lack of facilities and space. Bristol was the
sole manufacturing site of hand-applied Frosties.
In 1950 Bristol Bakery won the Provincial Bakeries
Shield for the first time. There was also a
Provincial Tea Depot at Bristol which was opened by
George Pollard in 1905 (still active in 1947) but
it is unclear as to whether this was located in the
same building as the bakery. Pollard's son was
employed in the office.
Chessington Bakery
The
Chessington bread unit was established at
Chessington in the 1954. In 1970/71 when the Cadby
Hall bread production unit closed Chessington was
enlarged with a new 15-sack plant. The despatch was
reorganised and a modern dock built for the easier
loading of vans. A large DCA doughnut plant was
installed and this supplied the total doughnuts
needs for J. Lyons. A small Swiss roll plant
supplied some Lyons cakes products.
Crawley Bakery
Crawley
opened as a Bread Bakery in 1957. It was one of the
larger provincial bakeries selected for enlargement
when the Cadby Hall bread production unit closed in
1970/71. In the 1960s an American type roll plant
to produce Wimpy buns for all the Wimpy bars in the
country was set up with a national distribution
fleet, and with freezer/defrost facilities. It was
also developed as a specialist morning goods bakery
(soft rolls, buns, crumpets etc.) and had the
latest equipment installed from manufacturers in
Britain, the continent and the US. It produced
crumpets during the winter period for all the Bread
Sales operations.
East London ?
No
details are known of this operation.
Eastleigh Bakery, Lee Road, Eastleigh, Hampshire,
SO50 9YY
The
Southampton Bakery started in 1965 operating for
one year as a Lyons Bakery Cake Depot. Then there
was a move to Eastleigh in 1966 to what was
described as a 'wooden hut and four acres of land'.
In its first year, supplied with goods from the
Bristol Bread Unit, the depot had just 12 journeys.
A year later there were 21 and the depot began to
get its product from the Crawley Bread Unit. In
December 1966, a new despatch building was added.
The most up to date in the Bread Division, it
eliminated the use of fork lift trucks. Pallet
loads of good were wheeled off the Beavers (Lyons'
long distant transport trucks) onto the delivery
vans thus speeding the distribution process. This
Unit was the general responsibility of #
Stringer, Regional General Manager (South).
In
1968 new baking plant was installed at the
Eastleigh Bread Depot to meet the increasing demand
in southern England for Vienna and morning goods
products. The work took 5 months to complete which
started in January 1968. Chris Long was the
Production Manager at that time. When complete the
unit made finger, super, mini-super and large
crusty rolls, country baps, and fruit & currant
buns. It was planned to increase the number of
items to over 20 which included crusty bread lines
and new products like scones and small country
loaves which were popular in the area. The new
bakery had the latest type of roll plant which
automatically divided, moulded and panned the
dough. There was also a small crusty bread plant
with a divider and cone moulder. From the two
plants the dough passed to the static prover. This
device had temperature and humidity controls making
the proving process about 20 minutes; much faster
than the previous method when the dough was left to
prove at room temperature. About 30 staff worked
the bakery when it was at full output. This
provincial unit served an area within a 30-40 mile
radius of Southampton extending to the isle of
Wight, Bognor Regis, Poole and Newbury in
Berkshire. This area was covered by 29 Salesmen who
were managed by Jack Jenkins. In October 1970 it
was announced that the Eastleigh Bakery would
become a full bread unit, with Chessington and
Crawley, and that most of the Cadby Hall bread
production would be transferred. Building work at
Eastleigh had been started several weeks previously
and trials of the 15-sack bread plant would start
in 1971. This plant incorporated features such as
automatic oven-feed and suction de-panning designed
to eliminate the more arduous aspects of bread
baking. Because of the large amount of space at
Eastleigh working conditions were generally of a
high standard. The Eastleigh Bakery continued in
production after Lyons Bakery Ltd were sold to
Manor Bakeries but the plant is due to close at the
end of 2005 with production moving to Carlton,
Yorkshire.
Garret's Green Bakery (Birmingham)
The
Garret's Green factory was part of the
Scribbans-Kemp Fuller, Kunzle Group. It majored in
small cake manufacture and most of its specialised
equipment was designed and made on the premises in
the factory's 22-man machine shop. Mint Meringues,
Fondant Fancies, Macaroons, Cakelets (a chocolate
enrobed cake) and home made Crackle Cakes were just
a few of the special items made. Own label cakes
were made also for Marks & Spencer, British
Homes Stores and Tesco. One of its more famous
lines was the production of Showboats, a chocolate
case shell, filled with sponge and butter filling
and topped with a piped decoration. These cakes
were individually wrapped and packed into boxes of
six or twenty-four. Nearly a half million were
produced every week at the Garret's Green factory
and it was the only chocolate-shelled cake of its
kind made in Britain.
Glasgow Bakery
Linden
Bakery at Govan, Glasgow, was built in 1927 as a
biscuit factory and was taken over by Lyons Bakery
in 1962 from the Gailbraith retail grocery chain.
At this time the product range was more broadly
based with morning goods the speciality. Gailbraith
remained one of Linden Bakery's biggest customers
right up to the mid 1970s. In September 1971 Linden
Bakery Ltd was formed to expand the Lyons share of
the £20 million cake market and operated as a
self contained unit. Research indicated that the
Scottish market was basically different in
structure from the national pattern in that people
in Scotland spent more per capita on cake than
people in other parts of the British Isles. Demand
in Scotland was also greater for morning goods
(rolls, crumpets and buns). The Scottish bakery
therefore concentrated on developing short-life
products designed to be eaten within hours of being
baked. As a result every customer was called on
every day, excluding Sunday, by the 50 strong
Linden Bakery fleet supported by a number of vans
operated on a franchise basis. The bakery also
produced own-label goods for the catering trade. By
1974 they were producing Scotch Pies and Bridies,
Hot Plate (potato) Scones and Scotch pancakes in
addition to their cake lines. Seasonal cakes for
Easter and Halloween were also made. Linden Bakery
also had an Edinburgh depot at Broxburn. Until 1976
Lyons Bakery were also operating from the same site
and at one time were making Harvest Pies there.
When the bakery production was transferred to
Carlton, Linden Bakery Ltd continued to operate. In
March 1979 it started producing Sponge Oysters,
part of the new frozen cake range Lyons Bakery had
introduced. Sponge Oysters were an entirely new
small cake, produced exclusively at Glasgow, and
consisted of a curl of sponge cake, a layer of
mixed fruit and jam and a light whipped filling
topped with a glace cherry and packed 5 to a box.
The fresh frozen cake range had been introduced
into Bejam in 1977.
Despite
the new lines, Linden Bakery had been trading for
several years at a loss and was closed in February
1981 with the loss of 290 permanent staff. The
Managing Director of Linden Bakery at this time was
Gordon Jenkins who made the announcement to staff
in November 1980. This is not the end of the story
of Linden Bakery. When the factory closed in
February 1981, a workers co-operative was
established and was allowed to continue production
under the new name of Craighton Bakery Ltd.
Employing 30 staff it was allowed free rental of
the pie and hot-plate plants which occupied about 5
per cent of the floor area at the front of the
bakery. In addition Lyons Bakery allowed the
co-operative access to information about customers
and suppliers or raw material and packaging and use
of the gas and electricity metering facilities. To
maintain continuity of supply when the co-operative
began operation on 2 February 1981, workers were
allowed to spend the previous weekend in the
factory making final preparations. The only request
rejected by Lyons was the use of the Linden name
and trademarks. The new company had six months to
find a new site but they were hopeful that the
Scottish Development Agency would make a bid on the
site and allow the new company to remain in situ.
The idea was instigated by the Scottish
Co-operatives Development Committee, backed by
local authorities, unions and employees. Allied
Supplies agreed to provide outlets for the
Craighton products which included Scotch pies,
potato scones, Scotch pancakes, crumpets and
fruited crumpets at Gailbraith Stores, Templeton's
and Presto Discount Stores. These stores hitherto
had already taken the bulk of Linden products.
Glasgow District Council gave £1,000 to help
get the project started and on the opening day the
city's Lord Provost performed the launching
ceremony in a blaze of publicity, including
television cameras. All the workers were committed
to investing £250 of their own money and they
all agreed to work, sometimes 14 hours a day, with
no pay in the first four weeks.
Hove Bakery (Brighton)
The
Hove Bakery was originally known as Brighton Bakery
and it was situated in Middle Street, Brighton,
prior to 1929. It produced goods for the teashops
in the area. In 1937/8 it moved to Hove and became
known as the Hove Bakery. Products included Iced
Fancies and Battenburg cake. In 1919 there was
already a Distribution Depot at Hove with at least
seven salesmen operating the Hove and Brighton
areas.
Leeds Bakery
The
first teashop in Leeds opened in County Arcade in
1903. There were two other teashops in Leeds (Bond
Street and Briggate) and it is not known in which
the Provincial Bakery was situated. See also entry
for Manchester.
Liverpool Bakery
It
is thought that the Liverpool Provincial Bakery
opened as early as 1902/3. Between 1902-1920 no
fewer than eight teashops opened in Liverpool. The
Bakery won the Provincial Bakery Challenge Shield
in 1937. One hundred and thirty-seven guests
attended the dinner where it was presented at
Reece's Restaurant. Only a half point separated
them from Norwich, the previous year
winners.
Manchester Bakery
The
earliest record of the Provincial Bakery in
Manchester is dated 1906. This appears in an
obituary to M. McCormick in the Lyons Mail October
1938. He had joined the early provincial bakeries
32 years previously in Manchester. From here he was
transferred to Nottingham in 1910 when the new
teashop opened in Long Row. Later he went to
Bradford and was in charge of the bakery there and
from Bradford he went to Leeds where he was in
charge for many years. Later he was transferred to
Bristol. The earliest Manchester teashop opened in
1904 at 34 Market Street. This was followed by
three more teashop, all of which opened in 1906 at;
44 Deansgate; 77 Piccadilly and 1 Princess Street.
Two more were opened in 1907, one in 1911, one in
1924 and one in 1931. It is possible that the
Manchester Provincial Bakery opened in one of the
teashops in 1906.
Margate Bakery
No
details are known of this bakery.
Norwich Bakery
The
Provincial Bakery at Norwich is known to have been
operating in 1934. They were runners up in 1934 and
1935 in the Provincial Bakeries Challenge Shield
Competition, competed for each year by all the
Provincial Bakeries.
Nottingham Bakery
The
Nottingham Bakery opened in 1910 at the new teashop
situated at 34 Long Row. The manager in charge was
M. McCormick (see Manchester).
Oxford Bakery, Middle Way, Summertown,
Oxford,
The
Oliver and Gurden factory at Oxford came into the
Lyons Group when they acquired the interests of the
Scribbans-Kemp Fuller, Kunzle Group in 1968. At
this time cakes were being produced at their bakery
in Middle Way by a production staff of 130. Many
were skilled bakers and confectioners and long
service was a tradition. The factory had won many
awards and medals during their 50 production years.
Many of these medals and awards were on display in
the company's reception area at Oxford. They were
one of the first bakers to use to use electric
travelling ovens and two were installed with 44
trays on each. There were also five, twelve-tray
double reel ovens and a forty tray reel oven.
Oliver & Gurden exported cakes to America,
Canada, Belgium, Holland Indonesia, Singapore,
Nigeria, Surinam, Bahamas, Tortola and the Virgin
Islands. It also had a standing order at British
embassies all over the world. Despite these
prestige connections an inspection of the factory
after acquisition, by Lyons' laboratory staff,
identified a lack of proper hygiene controls which
were not in keeping with Lyons' own high standards
and they were promptly corrected.
Sheffield Bakery
The
first Provincial Bakery opened in Sheffield in 1900
at the teashop in 45 Hight Street. It was managed
by John Stall who had joined the company in 1896
and succeeded his father as foreman of the Vienna
Department at Cadby Hall. He had a great knowledge
of all branches of bakery, particularly Vienna
baking, winning a medal as a young man at a Paris
Exhibition. He was transferred to the Sheffield
Bakery when it opened in 1900. He also
superintended the opening of other northern
bakeries.
Smethwick Bakery (Birmingham)
The
bakery at Smethwick, opened before 1928, was taken
over by Lyons in 1968 with the acquisition of
Scribbans-Kemp Fuller, Kunzle Group. The
Scribbans-Kemp Group had three bakeries; Smethwick
employing 1,200 people; Garrets Green, Birmingham
where 1,000 were employed and Oxford where the
speciality cakes of Oliver & Gurden were made.
The Smethwick factory closed at the end of 1977
following the transfer of production to Carlton.
Much of its output was concerned with the
manufacture of Vienna Swirls, Eccles cakes, fruit
pies and deep pie tarts. Colin Abbott, former
Smethwick bakery manager, presided at a farewell
lunch for the last eight security officers to leave
in a nearby hotel on 4 November 1977. Ernie
Fellowes, also a former factory manager was there
as were three managers from Cadby Hall, Ken Hurst
and Bob Inglis (manufacturing) and Don Winter
(Personnel).

Smethwick Bakery Management Team 1972
Standing (L-R)
Roy Ingledew (Site Manager), Fred Grabewski (Dispatch Manager),
Ian ? (Production Foreman), Neville Aston (Production Foreman),
Walter Doye (Production Foreman), Ken Elphick (Plant Manager),
Ray Labrum (Production Foremen), ???, Jack Mayo (Dep. Chief Engineer),
Reg Phillips (Production Foreman), Paul Fell (Production Foremen),
Bill Williams (Production Foreman).
Seated (L-R)
??? (Production Team Leader), ??? (Training Instructor), ??? (Training Manager)
Barry Davis (Production Foreman), Dave Handley (Production Foreman)
??? (Personnel Department).
Courtesy of Paul Fell
Tottenham Bakery, London
Tottenham
Bread Bakery opened in February 1951 to produce a
range of sliced and wrapped bread, a small roll and
bun bakery and with approximately 20 bread delivery
vans for wholesale deliveries. Other bakery items
were supplied from Cadby Hall.
Wakefield Bakery, Thornes Road, Wakefield,
Yorkshire.
The
Wakefield Bakery opened in 1958 to produce Swiss
rolls. In 1965 a revolutionary purpose building was
built around the plant by a team headed by Harry
Hudson. When completed it was considered by many
working there as the most modern cake bakery in
Europe, a title it lost when the Carlton factory
opened. It had a single span 110 foot roof
obviating the need for supports thus allowing all
floor space to be utilised. This allowed management
to lay out production lines in the most efficient
way. By 1970 it was employing 230 full-time staff
and thirty part-timers. Wakefield too had some of
the most modern automated cake plant in the baking
industry at this time and had less diversification
to worry about than some other factories. All the
production was sponge cake and so the factory only
had to handle one type of flour. Most of the work
was pure production with very little effort devoted
to development; that was done elsewhere. The
factory produced 450,000 Joly Rolls every week,
150,000 Hostess Swiss Rolls, 90,000 Souflette
Sandwiches and 140,000 packs of Baby Swiss Rolls.
Add on 80,000 large chocolate enrobed rolls,
200,000 boxes of Trifle Sponges and you've got an
awful lot of sponge cake. Peter Ingledew was the
factory manager until November 1976 having been
there since 1958. R. W. P. Hare took over from
Peter Ingledew when he transferred to Carlton in
November 1976. In 1979 the bulk distribution
administration department was equipped with a
Redifon 300 computer to handle van stock control
and sales invoicing. The system enabled records to
be kept of every stock movement.
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