About Us

A Bill from the early days

Harry Taylor was a Yorkshireman, born in Sheffield, who travelled around the north of England as a butcher manager, setting up butchers' stalls and shops and moving on.

In 1922, seeing a niche for a business of his own in Darlington, he brought his family from Sheffield to Darlington and set a market stall there selling meat and pies.                                                          

The shop at 43 and 44 Skinnergate

His business prospered so that by 1922 he was able to purchase 43 and 44 Skinnergate and furnish the premises as a shop. During the Second World War, he supplied all the NAAFIS in the area. Business increased so that he needed and was able to buy numbers 41 and 42 Skinnergate and expand the scope of the shop. 

As Harry's sons grew up and left school, they learned the trade, so that when he retired his sons took over. Robert left the family business in 1952 to set tip his own shop in Cockerton.

Sadly, another son, Cyril, died in 1957, whilst Dick left in 1959 to run his own shop in Hollyhurst Road. In the same year, number 45 Skinnergate was purchased to make the parent shop even bigger.S

Sovereign

Jimmy continued to run the Skinnergate shop on his own with about 50 staff until he retired in 1975. He was proud to remember his purchase of the Smithfield champion of 1964 to butcher and sell.After 1975 the business continued under his daughter Pamela and his nephew Tony. This latter partnership is still in operation with the assistance of Paul, Stuart and Nigel from the next generation of Taylors. 

In recent years the company has developed and adapted to make the most of a shrinking market. Traditional butchery has been supplemented by prepared foods, pies and other convenience meat products and frozen foods. The delicatessen trade has been developed.  In 1992 a factory unit was set up at Green Street for manufacturing the company's own prepared pies, sausages and other prepared foods.

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