Historic north coast trading centre Burr’s of Tongue revived with opening of new bakery
A MAJOR milestone has been reached in the revitalisation of an historic trading site at Tongue, which is of great cultural and heritage significance to north coast communities.
Cereal Bakery opened its doors at Burr’s of Tongue last Friday - the first time in years that a bakery has operated at the site which was a commercial hub in the early years of the last century.
Around 160 local people poured through the doors to buy pies, biscuits, cakes and bread, all baked on the premises by new operators Niall Furlong and Wing Mon Cheung who have moved north from Bath.
Joe Dunn, director of built development at conservation and eco-tourism company Wildland Ltd, which owns the 1.2 hectare Burr’s of Tongue site, said he was delighted to see the bakery up and running and the response to it from local people.
“The idea is that all the buildings here will be restored and put back into use,” he said. “What these uses will be has still to be defined and we are working collaboratively with the community to try and create a vibrant amenity - as it was.”
Historic entrepreneur Robert Garden established a flagship store and coach service on the site in the early 1900s but his empire collapsed in 1932 when the site was acquired by Peter Burr.
He developed the site to include a bakery, tea rooms and a public transport and haulage enterprise, providing goods, transport, fuel and a place to rest.
In more recent years, the site was home to Spar store and filling station, but the site gradually fell into disrepair while the remaining historic buildings became derelict.
In 2019 it was purchased by Wildland Ltd - owned by Danish entrepreneur and local landowner Anders Holch Polvsen who along with his wife Anne has taken a keen interest in redeveloping the site.
Wildland held a community engagement event last November, inviting people to share their ideas for the future of the site - and the one thing everyone agreed on was that they wanted a bakery.
Work began 18 months ago to sympathetically restore the historic old shop building into a bakery and meeting place where people can enjoy a cup or tea or coffee and a chat.
There is a small retail space in the bakery for local creatives to display their work - currently it is occupied by furniture maker Keith Coghill.
Mr Dunn said: “A huge amount of restoration work was needed - the old buildings did not meet modern day standards. The success of the project is that it (the building) feels like it did, but a lot of work has gone on behind the scenes to make it happen.”
Bakery operators Niall and Wing Mon, who are partners in life and business, have years of experience in the hospitality industry and previously ran a small bakery in Bath.
Niall, who spent all his school holidays in the Highlands where his grandfather lives, said: “We came up in May to look at the space and decide if we wanted to take it on and we knew very quickly that we did. It just fits in very well with everything we want to do.”
He added: “We only work with organic produce and we really want to work with as many small scale producers as possible. We are actively reaching out to people to see if they can supply us.”
The couple are currently running Cereal Bakery three days a week, Friday to Sunday from 9am to 3pm. Their long-term goals include creating a local food network to “connect the dots” between growers, bakers, restaurants, hotels,and customers, creating and setting up a flour mill as well as growing heritage grain.
They have been touched by the response from the community.
“It was really nice to have the support of the community on the first day. Most of the customers were local and everyone knew each other. A couple who came in at the end were doing the NC500,” said Niall.
Mr Dunn said the bakery was just the start and it was hoped its opening would help others to set up at Burr’s Stores. He said it was hoped that further community discussions would take place but ideas for using the site included community markets, creative workshops, films and talks.
