Thanks to some family history exploration it seems I may even have biscuits running in my veins. My Great Grandfather was a commercial traveller working for Meredith & Drew, selling of all things… biscuits! So with a natural affinity to all things sweet and crumbly it was perhaps inevitable I made my way to ‘Biscuit Town’ aka Bermondsey to visit a very special little museum only open by appointment.
There are plenty of clues on route to Drummond Road in South London, to where the Peek Frean biscuit factory used to stand. A little bit of community art here, the hint in a road sign there and some tired old information boards before you come across the site of the old biscuit factory, originally 11 and half acres it was absolutely massive. Just like a Roald Dahl story book, the whole area used smell of sweet baking biscuits… sadly no such aromas survive today and as diggers and construction workers knock down the remaining factory buildings it is a history that is fast being eroded.
“And outside the walls, for a half a mile around every direction the air was scented with the heavy rich smell of melting chocolate… Oh, how he loved that smell! And oh, how he wished he could go inside the factory and see what it was like.”
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl (or could it actually be Biscuit Town!)
The buildings that do remain on the site of the old factory are owned by Workspace who rent out office space for businesses and it is nice to see a few familiar names have been used to help you navigate on site. I am met by Gary who takes me up past ‘Bourbon Studios’ to the Peek Frean Biscuit Museum and you will be pleased to know the first thing you are met with when visiting is a cup of tea and, of course, a biscuit.
The Peek Frean Biscuit Museum is a survivor, it was originally part of the Pumphouse Educational Museum in Rotherhithe but faced an uncertain future when Southwark Council withdrew funding to the museum in 2010. Workspace offered museum volunteers Gary and Frank a rent-free room on the original site of the Peak Frean factory and the biscuit museum came home.
Frank is the museum’s ‘living exhibit’ having worked for Peek Frean for 30 years and once you are settled with your tea and biscuit he tells you the history of the company and the stories of employees who worked there. He begins his tale in 1857 with tea importer James Peek, and Peek’s nephew by marriage was, you guessed it, George Frean and biscuit history was made with the ‘Pearl’ – a soft, sweet biscuit that proved to be a popular success and helped to establish their reputation.
From factory fires and ‘flaming biscuits that rained down from the sky’ to worker healthcare and social societies Frank knows his biscuits, and by the end of the visit you will too. Waving a Garibaldi at me as he runs through the story of the first chocolate covered digestive, the ‘Chocolate Table’, he has me dipping into the biscuit box for some more sweet treats of my own.
But Peek Frean’s isn’t just a story of biscuits, it is very much a story of the many, many, local people who worked the factory floor and walked the streets with their catalogue and biscuit samples to sign up new customers. Frank and Gary welcome the ex-workers and children of ex-workers who come to their door seeking information on family and friends. Nicknames were rife, Frank was known as ‘Taffy’ and only the other day ‘Chip Shop’s’ wife called up. In a cabinet are kept the staff magazines going back through the decades, often when an employee of long service retired there might be a photograph and an article about them. They even found an obituary of one staff member from 1919 and a photograph to pass on to a relative searching out their family history and they hadn’t ever seen a photo of their relative till Gary sent on a copy to them.
But it isn’t just locals who come knocking, from researchers on the Great British Bake Off to the London Fire Brigade Museum who have found a ladder with P & F & Co painted on the side, the story of Peek and Frean is the story of biscuits, a story of Bermondsey and a story of London but one that has connections that stretch to the ‘Nib Nob biscuit’ in India and expansion to Canada and beyond.
All this rich history before I even get a chance to look round the museum! We have to start with what Gary calls ‘the elephant in the room’, a replica giant wedding cake that was made by Peek Frean for the royal wedding of Queen Elizabeth II to Prince Philip. This is actually a replica of the replica, the original replica was damaged by squatters who broke into the previous site at the Pumphouse Educational Museum. There is still the remnants of that exhibit in a back room, broken, splashed with red paint and wrapped in clingfilm.
It is another lovely story of survival against the odds, volunteers from the British Sugarcraft Guild gave their time for free to rebuild the cake, Gary proudly shows me his over-large flower, the last that was added to the structure. The giant cake sits quite at home at the centre of a museum that is filled with little gems.
Of course there are biscuit tins as you would expect, but what biscuit tins! From early ‘caskets’ in the art deco style to castles, there is even a catalogue with a Laughing Cavalier tin that I definitely have my eye on. From rude tins that require a little bit of careful looking to old family favourites. Not forgetting the element of experimentation too, although some biscuits, like the ‘Cream of Tomato’ Cocktail biscuit were doomed to failure, I can’t imagine why…
There are some brilliant letters rich in social history, a reminder of the golden age of customer service and the strictures of the factory floor. A letter from Singapore in 1964 complained of stale biscuits when in fact the purchased tin was over six years old and yet Peek, Frean & Co were more than happy to exchange the biscuits. From 1938 a certain Ms Brooks was chastised for ‘throwing snow about the workroom’, the misdemeanour was officially placed on her record card and it would take a ‘period of three consecutive years’ before the disciplinary notice would be ‘expunged’.
There is lots to see and enjoy from ‘memory joggers’ the early iteration of a ‘smart fridge’ that reminds you what you need to buy next time you go shopping to the most delightful recipe book that even Willy Wonka himself would have been proud of.
But as I wander round it is the large square family favourite tins that drawn me in. Pure nostalgia and memories of ‘special’ Christmas biscuits, coming in from school in time for tea and a tray of brown and cream delights, fighting over our favourites and getting in first to grab the chocolate ones. Memories of my Mother-in-law who always bought Marks & Spencer thick chocolate biscuits when she visited in December and a much loved Auntie who always had a battered tin of (admittedly slight soft and stale) pink wafers that entranced my kids as we never had them at home.
The simple comfort of a hot drink and a biscuit: nibbled; split open and the cream scraped out; dunked to soften and eaten whole – you can’t help but walk round with a smile on your face.
It is just Gary and Frank at the Peek Frean Biscuit Museum and after the last ten years or so of visiting so many flashy exhibitions, wizzy interactives and state of the art museums I am utterly charmed by my visit. But more importantly it reminds me of the origins and purpose of museums, the thrill of a collection, the little stories and touch points that reach out and connect with us in a thousand little ways. The sheer perseverance to keep the story of ‘Biscuit Town’ alive, the hours spent looking on ebay, adding to collections, helping relatives and telling stories.
Like many parts of London, change in Bermondsey is rapid and unstoppable, you can’t derail it and you wouldn’t always want to, but change that has a recognition of the roots of an area, that honours the stories of the past makes for a much richer present.
Thank goodness we still have small, quirky unusual museums like the Peak Frean Biscuit Museum and thank goodness we have the likes of Gary and Frank to preserve it for us, from living history to objects from the past, a welcome cup of tea and a biscuit when you turn up and time for a friendly chat. I know many a London museum that would benefit from their approach.
My visit has been a timely reminder of why I love museums and the people who keep them going, if they didn’t whatever would I write about? I think it’s time to buy that special box of Christmas biscuits, as long as I get first pick on the chocolate ones.
Huge thanks for Gary and Frank for welcoming me to the Peek Frean Biscuit Museum.
The Peek Frean Biscuit Museum is open by appointment https://www.facebook.com/PeekFreanMuseum/
A visit to Peek and Frean’s Biscuit Factory – YouTube – BFI (1906) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8O2EYrueHNE&t=423s
* * *
Claire has been blogging about museums as Tincture of Museum for over 10 years. She has turned her museum obsession into a fully fledged job by writing the monthly Newsletter for the National Museum Director's Council. Accessibility and inclusion has always been at the heart of her work as founder of Autism in Museums Claire works to make museums and heritage open and available to all.