Ford’s, Bakers

 Sponsored by the Beechbourne  Herald & Courier 

Ford’s, Bakers & Purveyors, trading as Ford’s of Beechbourne,  is a family-owned bakery, caterer, and tea shop in Beechbourne, which has been trading as a bakery – although not continuously – since the reign of John and in the same family – although with changing surnames according to inheritance – for all that time.

It is a resolutely traditional baker’s, on which, with the trends towards organic and ‘real’ food, it has of late capitalised.

History
 Adam le Baker, otherwise Adam le Bâtard, was the son of Cis, daughter to Walter le Miller, was the manorial baker for the Malet lords, and generally considered a bastard son of one or another of the Malet lads or possibly the lord himself. Adam’s son Tom le Baker, what time Beechbourne was granted a market charter, proposed to Sir Geoffrey Malet, the new lord of the Honour, that, in exchange for compounding his servile duties, he be appointed public baker and maltster to the new market town, paying regular monetary fees to the lord.

This was granted, and what is now Ford’s was founded. In 1226, Tom le Baker’s son-in-law Tom of the Ford became an ale-conner and member of the Assize of Bread and Ale in the town; Tom o’ the Ford’s great-grandson by his son-in-law Short Will, Adam Short, was the town’s maltster and baker at the time of the Black Death.

 Despite a few troubles in the troublesome and troubled 15 th Century, the bakery ceased trading only during brief periods of disaster and depression and war. By the reign of Edward 4 th, the bakery was on a sound footing once more, having remained within the control of the allied families of Baker, Miller, Mullins, Ford, Cull, Silverthorne, Brackers, Carpenter, Dyet, Kellow, Lever, and Leaver; by the accession of the Stuarts, the firm was firmly that of the Fords, and known as Ford’s. And so it has been since.

In order to survive and to concentrate upon their core business during the amalgamations and economic dislocations of the Victorian period, a time when so many small firms went to the wall under the pressure of competition, Ford’s sold the last of its interests in the maltings, and opened its first tea shop on the Market Square. The Ford family by that time were civic worthies, patrons, and councillors; they provided Beechbourne with its mayor in Jubilee Year and in the year of the Queen-Empress’ death.

 The early 20 th Century was difficult for Ford’s: Alfred Ford, the young heir, was killed at Ypres in 1917 as a subaltern of 6 WILTS, 58 th Bde, 19 th (Western) Division, XIX Corps, Second Army; Frank Ford was killed in action in Burma in the Second World War; his cousin Jack Short fell in Korea, with the Gloucestershires, at Hill 235: Gloster Hill.

Under John Ford the Younger, and the present Chairman, Tommy Ford, Ford’s has expanded once more, in a canny way, avoiding hubris, and is now once more interested in the maltings as well as in the bakery and catering trade. Tommy Ford is, as of 2017, Mayor of Beechbourne as well.