Yorkshire Sweet Shop Oldest in the World: Official

For Keith Tordoff, who took on the business, which trades under the name The Oldest Sweet Shop in England, 20 years ago, the official recognition has had an enormous impact. “It’s attracted attention from all round the world,” Keith said.“I’ve done radio interviews with Australian radio and American TV.” The shop is now to appear on British TV programmes too.

The shop at the centre of this media storm started trading “before 1827. The building itself dates from the 1600s. For all we know, we could have had Charles Dickens looking through our window.”

Keith and the shop have seen trends in confectionery come and go, but the “sweet of the moment is the raspberry bonbon.” Nationwide, Keith said, the sweets which are coloured blue to resemble the American blue raspberry sell on average 50 tonnes a month. Keith’s own 7lb jars of raspberry bonbons often are topped up “three times a day.”

The future looks bright for the oldest sweet shop in the world. Keith hopes it will continue to be popular with “the elderly who are reminiscing and the young who are fascinated by the sort of shop which would have been familiar to their parents and grandparents.”