One of Market Drayton’s most famous names has made a comeback in the town ahead of one of the biggest weekends of the year.
Billington’s Gingerbread, which was first produced from a factory in Church Street in 1817, is back on sale in time for next week’s Taste of the Town Exhibition and Market.
The world-famous gingerbread is now made from a bakery in South Yorkshire by 34-year-old Mark McCarthy, who left Market Drayton six years ago.
“I used to make it with my father until he retired and I started my own bakery up here and we carried on with it,” he said.
“The recipe has not changed in 200 years and it is made with an old Victorian hand-cranked machine. It needs the odd bit of repair now and again but I can see it lasting another 200 years as long as there is a demand for it.
“I cannot see why it shouldn’t carry on.”
Billington’s Gingerbread is available from the Hart to Hart gift shop in Stafford Street, which is run by Barbara Jones.
It is the first time people in Market Drayton have been able to buy it here since the closure of the Bread Bin in Queen Street last December.
“When it was missing from the town, people asked ‘where can I get the gingerbread?’" Barbara said.
“Everybody was asking me ‘where is it?’ but now it is back in town.”
Mark’s father, Terry McCarthy who still lives in Drayton, bought the secret recipe off John Haywood Hughes of Cheswardine 13 years ago and carried on making it until his retirement.
“It is the real gingerbread and we think there is nothing quite like it,” he said.
“It is very time consuming to make but people who try it always come back. There used to be three or four people turning out gingerbread here but Billingtons was the one that everybody wanted.
“You will be surprised how many people associate Market Drayton with gingerbread and, if it can help the town, that’s what it boils down to.”
