The Oldest Sweet Shop in The World

Christmas is coming, and with it a promise of the most mouth-watering selection of delicious foods and plenty of sweets for adults and kids alike. It's a time to over-indulge and enjoy yourselves - and for many of us, that includes reminiscing about Christmas past and the wonderful things we had when we were kids.

In the case of lucky residents of one Yorkshire town, the sweets they had in their youth are still around today - thanks to their local confectionery store being recognised as the oldest in the world! The high street shop, aptly named the Oldest Sweet Shop, has been selling confectionery since 1827 in the quaint town of Pateley Bridge.

Recognised as the world's oldest sweet shop by the Guinness World Records book in 2014, proprietors Keith and Gloria Tordoff were delighted to discover they own the earliest sweet shop on the planet. Keith said he found it exciting because he loved the Guinness Book of Records when he was a kid.

He says it's more than just a business - he's passionate about the shop. Like many people, he believes sweets are all about memories and he will often recall the ones his grandparents gave him - and giving a pack of Lovehearts to a girl he liked!

Before the pre-packed selection boxes became popular, many people will have fond memories of waking up on Christmas morning to a box of traditional sweets. The best-sellers at the oldest sweet shop include bon-bons, salty liquorice and assorted boiled sweets called Yorkshire Mixture.

Among the customers is a 97-year-old woman, who first entered the shop as a five-year-old child. On her last visit, she said it had hardly changed, apart from the position of the counter! Other customers include people who had first been in as evacuees during World War II.

The sweet shop is one of Pateley Bridge's oldest buildings. Nestling in the idyllic market town near Harrogate, it is like an Aladdin's cave for sweets fans. When it first opened as a sweet shop on High Street in 1827, confectionery such as spiced and herbal sweets were made on the premises. They were sold alongside boiled sweets, chocolates and toffees.

Invoices from 1903 call it "The Old Sweet Shop" and the name became the Oldest Sweet Shop in the middle of the 20th century. Although researchers had claimed for some time it was the world's oldest sweet shop, it wasn't officially validated until 2013 and appeared in the Guinness Book of Records the following year.

Most of the sweets today are manufactured the traditional way, boiling the sugar in old copper pans and pouring the mixtures into confectionery moulds that are more than a century old.

Large glass jars full of an amazing traditional selection of sweets and toffees line the wooden shelves. The shop also has its original till. Mr Tordoff didn't have the old till when he took over the shop, but amazingly he spotted it in an antique shop and returned it to its rightful place.

He had been a customer there as a child and remembered saying to the proprietor at the time, a lady called Janet, that if she ever sold the shop, he wanted to buy it - never realising that his dream would one day come true! In a modern twist, the sweet shop now has its own website, enabling customers to order online and receive the delicious old-fashioned sweets wherever they live.

If you have a sweet tooth, Solent Plastics has a large range of premium-quality food grade storage products that is ideal for storing all your festive favourites. Please contact us for further details.