Goodmans Bakery
At the back of Severnleigh at Framilode Passage was a series of outbuildings. The first one was a long brick building up two steps and was the bakehouse. “Go and get us a loaf” and I would be despatched along the road to Goodman’s Bakery. Fresh Bread..it was too hot to handle. Pull your shirt out and put the loaf in the material to walk home. The business had been at Framilode since the 1930’s and really was enough for two employees. There was “Baker” Holbrow who was up before dawn to tend the coke fired ovens and William Goodman (Bill) who shared the work and delivered the bread in a new, at the time, Morris J Van around Saul and Arlingham. My memory of the bakehouse is prioritised by smell. That of freshly baked bread like you deliberately get today in some supermarkets. You were greeted at the door by the heat from the ovens both sporting clock hands labeled “DCL YEAST” which were set to the time the loaves were ready. Inside scrubbed wooden tables dusted with flour and large wooden rolling pins for the cakes. Oh yes cakes.. cream slices with real cream, dough cakes cooked in a bread tin with a greasy crust the taste of which has never been equalled. But my favourite was their cottage loaves which were usually just a bit burnt.. take the top crust off and add Phipps’s Butter. With larger and larger shops selling sliced wrapped bread the bakery could not keep up and sadly in the 1950’s it closed and Bill Goodman went to sea operating sand boats. The last time I was there the two oven clocks were still there saying “DCL YEAST”
Goto: Horseshoe Filling Station and Cafe.
