A bakery in Bolton run by ex-offenders has been left flying high after winning big at the 2022 British Pie Awards.
Proving that everyone deserves a second chance, the bakery scooped up four gongs at this year’s prestigious ceremony held inside Melton Mobrawy’s 12th Century St Mary’s Church, also known as the ‘Cathedral of Pies’.
Cleaning up, the team of ex-offenders impressively won the overall vegan category with their chickpea curry pasty – leaving them feeling completely ‘ecstatic’.
HM Pasties were also awarded silver for their cheese and onion pie and twos bronzes for their traditional pastry and creamy vegan leek and mushroom pies.
Image: HM Pasties
In a heartfelt post shared to social media, the bakery said that achieving such recognition felt like a ‘validation of the work of the whole team’.
“This is such wonderful news for everyone in the bakery team,” they wrote.
“Four of our products to be recognised in this way, judged by experts, is such a validation of the work of the whole team.
“We couldn’t be prouder and thank everyone who has wished us well, bought our products and supported our journey so far.”
Image: HM Pasties
Image: HM Pasties
HM Pasties, set up by former prisoner Lee Wakeham in 2018, offers a lifeline to those in need of work experience after leaving prison.
Using ingredients from local prison farms wherever possible, the bakery makes delicious Cornish pasties and pies.
They weren’t the only ones to win big, either, with a total of six different Greater Manchester pie makers taking home gongs this year.
Ate Days A Week (Stockport), HM Pasties (Bolton), Great North Pie Co, Patel’s Pies (Manchester), Fraser’s Butchers (Bolton) and Baldy’s Pies (Wigan) all scooped up impressive comments from the judges this year – proving chefs in the north west more than know what they’re doing in the pie department.
Ate Days A Week, which has only been churning out pies for 18 months now, took home four awards – most notably, a prestigious Gold for their Lamb Pie Of The Tiger.
The team also took home silver awards for their Madrassive Attack and Ox Cheek Pie of the Tiger pies and scored a bronze for their Salt and Pepper Chicken Pie Of The Tiger.
Speaking on the win, owner and chef Andy James said: “Proper proper mad to even conceive that we’ve not even been making or selling pies for 18 months yet and that’s 5 awards in that time.
“I’m seriously proud of what we’re doing and where we’re going. Next year, we’ll be a class winner I promise that!”
Image: Ate Days A Week
Local favourites, longstanding winners and now, also, judges at the awards, the Great North Pie Company alsos did well – picking up two more awards to add to their collection.
Their Corned Beef and Potato and Chicken and Bovril Balti pies both earned Bronze awards at this year’s event, spelling good things to come for their Manchester pie shop – also due to open in the city later this year.
Elsewhere, Patel’s Pies, founded during the pandemic by ex-scaffolder Steve Patel, won two silver awards for their Aloo Matar and Chickpea and Paneer pies.
HM Pasties Bolton neighbours Frasers Butchers also got an acknowledgement, receiving three awards in total: a silver award for their pork pie and Huntsman pie, and a bronze for their classic meat and potato pie.
Meanwhile Wigan’s Baldy’s Pies, not to be overlooked, picked up a gold award for their Fisherman’s Pie.
The team was also awarded with a bronze gong for their Big Jim pie – comprised of bone marrow, braised beef shin, confit onion and pistachio crumb.
Further afield, the Cheshire Pie Company and Glossop’s butchers Mettrick’s also picked up awards at the 2022 competition.
‘Dazzling’ Victorian silver sculpture goes on public display in Greater Manchester after fears it was lost
Emily Sergeant
A long-lost masterpiece of Victorian silverwork has been saved and is now on display to the public in Greater Manchester.
Anyone taking a trip over to the National Trust’s historic Dunham Massey property, on the border of Greater Manchester into Cheshire, this summer will get to see the ‘dazzling’ sculpture called Stags in Bradgate Park – which was commissioned by a former owner in a defiant gesture to the society that shunned him.
The dramatic sculpture of two rutting Red Deer stags, commissioned in 1855 by George Harry Grey, 7th Earl of Stamford, was said to be an ‘act of love and rebellion’.
It also serves as a symbol of ‘locking horns’ with the society that ostracised him over his marriage to a woman considered ‘beneath him’.
“This isn’t just silver – it’s a story,” says James Rothwell, who is the National Trust‘s curator for decorative arts.
“A story of a man who fell in love with a woman that society deemed unworthy. When the Earl married Catherine Cox, whose colourful past was said to have included performing in a circus, Victorian high society was scandalised. Even Queen Victoria shunned the couple at the opera and local gentry at the horse races in Cheshire turned their backs on them.”
Modelled by Alfred Brown and crafted by royal goldsmiths Hunt & Roskell, Stags in Bradgate Park is a meticulously-detailed depiction of nature, and was considered a ‘sensation’ in its day.
Showing the rutting deer positioned on a rocky outcrop with gnarled hollow oaks, it graced the pages of the Illustrated London News, was exhibited at the London International Exhibition of 1862, and at the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1867 – both of which were events that drew millions of visitors.
A ‘dazzling’ Victorian silver sculpture has gone on public display in Greater Manchester / Credit: Joe Wainwright | James Dobson (via Supplied)
The silver centrepiece was the celebrity art of its time, paraded through streets and admired by the public like no other.
Gradually over the years, some of the Earl of Stamford’s silver collection has been re-acquired for Dunham Massey, and this particular world-renowned sculpture, thought to be lost for decades and feared to have been melted down, has miraculously survived with its ‘dramatic’ central component being all that is left.
“The sculpture is not only a technical marvel, with its lifelike depiction of Bradgate Park’s rugged landscape and wildlife, but also a dramatic human story key to the history of Dunham Massey,” added Emma Campagnaro, who is the Property Curator at Dunham Massey.
“It speaks of nature, of craftsmanship, and of a couple who chose each other over status and what others thought of them.”
The sculpture has now gone on display at Dunham Massey from Thursday 26 June.
Featured Image – James Dobson (via Supplied)
News
Lewis Capaldi announces MASSIVE comeback gig in Manchester this year
Thomas Melia
Everyone’s favourite Scottish ballad-maker, Lewis Capaldi, is heading out on tour across the UK, including a massive Manchester date.
Scottish singer-songwriter Lewis Capaldi is ready to tug at our heartstrings again right in front of our eyes as he announces a new UK arena tour.
This huge announcement comes right after his surprise set at the UK’s biggest music event of the year, Glastonbury, where he made a heroic return to the Pyramid Stage just two years after being forced to pull out.
Capaldi is known for writing some of the most notable and emotive hits of the late 2010s and early 2020s, including a long list of anthems such as ‘Someone You Loved’, ‘Bruises’ and ‘Before You Go’.
His monster of a hit ‘Someone You Loved’ has surpassed 3.9 billion views and is the UK’s most-streamed song of all time, so it is safe to say that his presence has been well and truly missed.
To many fans’ delight, the singer has stepped back into the spotlight and is ready to sing his heart out live at a variety of arenas across the UK, including Co-op Live right here in Manchester.
Now, in a post on his official Instagram account announcing this upcoming UK and Ireland arena tour, it’s good to see the Scottish powerhouse hasn’t lost his wit and charm as he jokes, “About time I got back to work.”
These shows are set to be in high demand as the singer has also revealed these upcoming dates, “Will be my only shows in the UK, Ireland or Europe this year! Would love to see ya there.”
On the back of his glorious Glasto return, Capaldi has dropped a huge heart-wrencher titled ‘Survive’ which offers more insight into the struggles and challenges the singer has been facing.
There is no confirmation of whether this new single marks the launch of a bigger project or not, but we can’t wait to scream his hits at the top of our lungs, regardless of when he pays Manchester a visit later this year.
Georgina Pellant -
15th March 2022 
