Melton is famous for its pork pies. Did you know their history?

Pork pies were first made commercially in Melton Mowbray in about 1831 in a small bakers shop next door to the Fox Inn, still to be found in Leicester Street. By 1855 the pies were famous throughout the County. In 1860 Enoch Evans built Melton's first pork pie factory, in Thorpe End, and Henry Collin opened another shortly afterwards. In 1863 the first large order for pies to be sent outside Melton was received, and 1,000 were sent to the Commercial Hotel at Stranraer in south west Scotland.

Evans Pie Factory

The trade continued to grow. Enoch Evans took his nephew into partnership and the firm became Evans & Hill; and a third manufacturer, Tebbutt & Crosher, started making pies - also in Thorpe End. Following various amalgamations the firm of Tebbutt & Tuxford emerged, which can still beseen in Thorpe End today - making Stilton cheese as well as pork pies.

Meanwhile, Joseph Dickinson had taken control of Collin & Co and had set up his pie shop next door to the Corn Exchange - the shop now known as Dickinson & Morris.

Melton in the late 19th century was famous and fashionable for fox hunting and racing, and the pie trade did well in that climate. Pies were sent all over the country: five tons to the Edinburgh Royal Review in 1881, 30,000 from Tebbutt & Co alone to the Preston Review in 1882, six tons to the Royal Agricultural Show in York in 1883.

In 1893, Tebbutt & Co received an order to supply a large number of pies to the Royal Household at Osborne on the Isle of Wight, where Queen Victoria was spending Christmas.

Trade continued in much the same way until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. Pie production then dropped, and the three firms turned to supplying rations for the troops. The business never really recovered - pork pies were being made across the country and a test case in the courts had established that the name "Melton Mowbray" could not be used as a trade name. In 1953 Evans and Co closed down and their factory was demolished a few years later.

Today, Melton Mowbray pork pies are as good as ever. You can visit Dickinson & Morris Ltd's original shop at 10 Nottingham Street, see skilled bakers hand raising the pork pies - a buy one to take away with you!

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