Scilicorn's Bakery, Llanrwst

Link to French translationScilicorn’s Bakery, Denbigh Street, Llanrwst

Henry Skillicorn took over the bakery here after moving to Llanrwst from the Isle of Man as a young man. In 1880 he married a local woman, Jane.

The building dates from 1703 and may have been a public bakery, where local people would bring their own dough for baking.

The 1901 census records that the couple had six sons and two daughters. As children, they delivered bread to houses across the district, as far afield as Capel Curig. John Skillicorn, aged 14, was one of three boys caught bathing in the river at Llanrwst without appropriate clothing in 1906. Magistrates fined the boys one shilling each.

Three of the Skillicorn sons died in the First World War and are named on the war memorial which is almost opposite the shop. Douglas Skillicorn had served with the Canadian Infantry, having moved to Montreal in 1907. Conway Skillicorn emigrated to the USA in 1910 and settled in Illinois. He served with the US Army, and the Welsh American newspaper Y Drych regretted in 1919 that his humour and wit would not be heard again.

John Skillicorn ran the family business until the 1950s, when it passed to the Williams family in the 1950s. The Griffiths family took over in 1971 and revived the old name but with a different spelling. The oven in which the bread is baked is more than a century old. It replaced an earlier oven on the premises.

The Hovis sign outside the shop was installed some time before the Second World War. Hovis began offering this kind of sign to small bakeries in 1906 to raise awareness of the brand name, which it had registered in 1890. Hovis employed its own workers who travelled the country cleaning and repainting the signs as required. Scilicorns bakery continues to use Hovis flour.

Postcode: LL26 OAA    View Location Map

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