Grasmere village’s original 17th century school has provided sweet inspiration for a new year confectionery.
Sarah Nelson’s Old School Toffee is Grasmere Gingerbread’s latest collaboration with Cumbrian food producer Country Flavour.
“This lovely artisan family business from Kirkby Stephen already makes all our wonderful fudges,” said Joanne Hunter, co-director of Grasmere Gingerbread.
“So we were thrilled when they offered to make our new toffee, which is absolutely delicious.
“After fruitlessly racking our brains for a suitable name, it was only when my husband Andrew declared that it tasted just like ‘old school toffee’ that I knew we had the perfect description.
“The Grasmere Gingerbread Shop was originally the village’s first school, built in 1630 by public subscription.”
Joanne asked Grasmere villager Richard Hardisty – the great-great-grandson of the school’s last headmaster James Airey – to help launch the new toffee.
Mr Hardisty described his ancestor as a very modest man who gave so much to the village.
His great-great-grandfather’s former school was where William Wordsworth occasionally taught before it was converted into a dwelling called Church Cottage for a poor and needy family in 1854.
This was the year Sarah Nelson moved in with her husband and two daughters and invented Grasmere Gingerbread, which she sold from a tree stump outside her front door.
Later – perhaps encouraged by her home’s former status – Sarah created giant Grasmere Gingerbread letters which she used to teach local children the alphabet.
