At first glance, it resembles a scene frozen in time. Behind the creaking wooden counter of the world's oldest sweet shop, glass jars brim with pear drops, kola cubes, and rhubarb and custards, while customers still ask for 'a quarter' just as generations did nearly 200 years ago.
Yet behind the nostalgia and sugar-coated charm of The Oldest Sweet Shop in the World lies a modern business battling rising costs, online competition, and the fallout from Rachel Reeves' tax hikes.
Owner Ben Howie, 29, who took over the famous North Yorkshire institution shortly before the pandemic, says recent increases to National Insurance and other business costs have put the family-run enterprise under pressure, forcing price rises and slowing investment plans.
'We've definitely had to pass on some of the costs to customers,' the 29-year-old told the Daily Mail. 'For myself and my brother, it means we're taking less out of the business than we were a few years ago, and we've slowed the rate of investment back into the business. We'd probably always forego our own take-home before letting staff go. But everything has become that bit tighter.'
Despite the squeeze, the business still shifts more than a tonne of sweets a week between the historic shop in Pateley Bridge and its booming online operation, run by Ben's brother James, 21, which now exports British confectionery across Europe and the United States.
American customers, Ben says, 'have a very sweet tooth and an appreciation for British sweets', particularly traditional favourites including rhubarb and custards, Yorkshire mixture, and liquorice. They have even won the loyalty of big corporations that every Christmas order around 13,000 boxes of sweets as gifts for employees.
Despite this modern shift, the shop itself remains stubbornly old-fashioned. Packets are still weighed out on original Victorian scales, customers are served from towering glass jars from the 1960s, and many sweets are made to recipes dating back generations.
'The previous owners were very keen for it to be taken over by someone who would keep it authentic,' Ben said. 'We've kept it as a 'living, working museum'. If you just wanted a cheap bag of sweets you could go to a supermarket, but there you don't get sweets weighed out on original scales, the atmosphere, or the friendly chat.'
He continued: 'We have original vending machines from the late Victorian era – one for Beechnut chewing gum and one for Woodbines tobacco cigarettes. They would have been on the outside wall as early vending machines: you'd put your penny in, turn the handle, and a tiny packet of chewing gum would come out. We also still use original scales: counterbalance or cantilever scales and till - once bought from the butcher down the road.'
The shop's deliberately simple pricing structure means most bags cost either £1.80 or £1.99, with classics such as white mice, sherbet lemons, and cola cubes among the top sellers. 'That means some lines carry little to no margin, while others carry more, but overall it allows us to create the experience we want,' says Ben.
And yes, the owner still samples the stock daily. 'I've tried all the sweets we stock,' Ben laughed. 'I probably eat sweets every day.'
The business nearly came unstuck during the pandemic after Ben decided to shut the physical shop entirely rather than attract tourists into the Yorkshire Dales during lockdown. Instead, he poured investment into expanding the online side of the company, growing the warehouse operation to six full-time staff and sending parcels across Britain, Europe, and America.
It marked a dramatic transformation for a business that first opened in 1827. Ben, who previously worked on a graduate business scheme in the construction equipment industry, admits buying the shop was something of a childhood fantasy. He managed to scrape together his life savings as well as a loan from the bank to make the deal go through.
'I'm originally from the area and had visited the shop when I was younger,' he said. 'In a way it was a bit of a childhood dream.'
The previous custodian of the sweet shop, former detective Keith Tordoff, had his own extraordinary journey into confectionery. A former police officer who worked major murder investigations during the Yorkshire Ripper era, Keith swapped CID and firearms work for pear drops and bonbons after buying the struggling business in the 1990s.
'I'd always wanted to go back to the sweet shop because I loved sweets,' he recalled. 'When I grew up, I lived in West Yorkshire, in Leeds, and I didn't go abroad with my parents; instead, we used to have days out to Pateley Bridge, and go to the sweet shop. Then as a police officer, I was also known for my sweet tooth.'
Keith said he attended some of Yorkshire's most notorious crime scenes before eventually giving up policing for what he called his 'dream job'. 'I was the first officer on what was classed as the first so-called Ripper murder I attended,' he said.
He and his wife Gloria ran the business for 28 years, rarely taking holidays and climbing the narrow shop stairs '50 times a day' to keep jars fully stocked. When retirement finally beckoned after Covid, they turned down much larger corporate offers in favour of selling to Ben. 'It was more important to me and my wife that it was kept as it was than to chase the highest bidder,' Keith said. 'Ben works very hard and has developed it fantastically.'
Now approaching its 200th anniversary next year, the sweet shop is planning celebrations that could include a nostalgic return to penny sweets. Ben says he hopes the business will still be serving customers centuries from now. 'I think of myself less as an owner and more as a custodian,' he said. 'My hope is that another 200 years from now, people still walk into this same room in Pateley Bridge to buy a quarter of sweets and share their stories.'
Best-selling Sweets Taste Test
Lemon Sherbets
This is a British hard-boiled lemon-flavoured sweet with a tangy, fizzy, powdery sherbet centre. They are yellow, traditionally with a bobbly texture, and offer a combination of sweet and sour flavours, making them an absolute classic.
Pear Drops
Sweet, fruity and wonderfully old-fashioned, with that classic pear-and-banana flavour that instantly tastes like childhood. They come in a distinctive teardrop shape and two-tone pink and yellow colouring.
Barley Sugars
Smooth, buttery and comforting, with a slight hint of orange. Barley sugars are a classic, long-lasting confectionery traditionally made with barley water - giving them a mild, sugary, and citrusy flavour - and are frequently used as 'travel sweets' to help alleviate nausea.
Yorkshire Mix
The Yorkshire Mix was easily the most fun to try because every handful offered something different. From fruity boiled sweets to sharper flavours such as Kola Kubes, it felt like a treasure bag of classic boiled sweets you don't get in supermarkets anymore.
Rhubarb & Custard
Perfectly balanced between tangy rhubarb and creamy sweetness; a true British sweet-shop classic.
Midget Gems
The midget gems had the perfect chewy texture - firm without feeling tough - and each flavour tasted bold and distinct. They were simple, unfussy and incredibly moreish, the sort of sweet you start eating absent-mindedly and suddenly realise half the bag has disappeared.
