Initially owned by Wilfred Armitage of Marsden.
Wilfred Rowell was the baker and took over the business along with his wife Peggy in 1953. Work started at 4 a.m.
Gerald Atkinson was an employee at the bakery. He carried on his head a tray of bread from the shop in Slaithwaite to a shop in Crimble. He was always accompanied by his dog Rinty. One day Rinty was startled and ran across the road underneath a car. The dog at the Swan Pub saw this accident and ran out of the pub to chase Rinty. Rinty ran into the Swan Pub, jumped over the bar breaking all the optics and glasses. But still the bread was delivered on time to the shop at Crimble.
The shop had accommodation above: 3 bedrooms and a bathroom. One bedroom was used for bakery storage, another bedroom for storing hams (for sandwiches), the small bedroom was the office. The largest room upstairs was used for finishing off cakes – preparing for catering done for Hunt Ball at the civic hall.
The baking was done in the bake house behind the shop. Cleaning out the ovens was done either in the holidays or at weekends. Had to wait for ovens to go cold because Mr. Rowell had to climb inside the ovens to clean them. It took 12 hours to bring the ovens back up to temperature.
Peggy Rowell was the business partner and she saw an opportunity with the mills working to provide sandwiches at lunchtime. Only offered ham or beef + pickle.
In the large room above the shop facing Globe Mill, Mr Rowell & a friend thought they could set up a boxing ring as Mr Rowell in his youth was a sparring partner of Randolph Turpin → (famous boxer of 1950s). Would have been a men only club but never happened.
Mr & Mrs Rowell didn’t have a telephone at the shop and when they needed to order more ingredients for their bread or cakes, they went to the neighbour’s shop – Mrs Bangham at the Crumpet Shop – to use her telephone. (Community spirit)
Crowthers at the butcher’s shop would make pies and bring them into Mr Rowell’s shop so they could be baked in his ovens (community spirit).
A neighbour at Wilberlee where Mr & Mrs Rowell lived went to Australia to visit her sister. While there she found a book about England. On a page near the front of the book was a picture of Mr & Mrs Rowell’s Bakers Shop, as it was originally.
Transcribed by Chat GPT (original deposited in the archives).
