History

 

1864 – THE BEGINNING The Monk family opened their new Pyclet Bakery in Edward Street, Derby. The men baked, the women sold them from barrows under the Guildhall arch at the northern end of Derby’s then new Market Hall.
1914 – EMILY MONK Emily Monk took her place behind her barrow under the guildhall clock where she sold pyclets (in her words) “every day bar high days and holidays” until 1963. 1964 – CRADLE TO CRADLE Emily passes on to the great bakery in the sky, and is succeeded by her, Rose who lived next door to the bakery and for many years helped the family.
1973 – TOUGH TIMES A combination of the Oil Crisis, the rise of the supermarket and the lack of interest from younger members of the family led to production ceasing in Derby.
1974 – THE END OF AN ERA The Pyclet bakery is split into four houses, and the very existance of Derby Pyclets passes into history.
2011 – A STORY UNFOLDS Mark Hughes buys his first home, a converted shop. Ian his conveyancing Solicitor, recognising the name Monk on the deeds and recalls their history. 2011 – THE RESURRECTION June 21st After some experimentation, we came up with a recipe and method for making Pyclets. Serving them at a friends party, they go down a storm topped with Smoked Salmon and Horseradish Cream, Stilton Honey and Walnuts or Coronation Chicken and Lime Pickle. Following the party on the 1st July Mark moves into his new House.

2011 – TAKING IT TO THE PEOPLE
14th July Captured by the idea, we turned up on Derby Market Place with a pop up and, like in “The Apprentice” sees if the public will buy them. From the first day they prove to be a hit.

2012 – EVOLUTION
April 2012, After 9 cold and hard months baking from a domestic kitchen and selling from a pop up, enough money had been saved to open a bakery in Derby’s Glorious Market Hall.

2016 – AWARDS
After four successful years in the market the Pyclet Parlour has been nominated as a finalist in the BBC Food and Farming Awards 2016 in the street food category and was featured on the 1 show.
2016 - A NEW START
From the 1st September 2016 Katie opened up the Pyclet Parlour for the first time, after eating here for over 3 years she decided to buy the Parlour in August taking the parlour into a new era of food service with additional opening hours, introduction of barista coffee and the expansion of flavours, dessert pyclets and a new range of free-from pyclets.  Business development continued with increasing retail outlets, bringing the business in to the digital age with social media, online ordering and mail order pyclets. 

Local promotion included being invited to talk about the history of pyclets and feed a celebrity judge panel on BBC's Kitchen Cabinet featuring Jay Rayner.   We played a major roll in the achievement of the GB High Street Awards for the cathedral quarter with extensive social media promotion, promoting with special product labels, entertaining the judges and featuring in local media.

2018 - A BOLD MOVE
After making the difficult decision to leave Derby's Market Hall during the renovation period Derby's pyclets found a new home for a short time in the Post House, bar and food court.  While we ultimately decided the unit wasn't suitable for growth and manufacturing our time at the Post House helped us to reach a new audience, was a key factor in the development of our dine in menu and saw us invest money in new equipment.

2018-2020 - EAGLE MARKET
During our time at The Eagle Market in Unit 41 we gained a whole new Pyclet family expanding our customer base with regular faces new and old.  We worked hard on lots of outdoor events, and in the parlour alike to become a supplier of pyclets and oatcakes to Morrisons.

2020-2021 - PANDEMIC PANDEMONIUM

Covid!  The pandemic hit the nation, we closed our Eagle Market Store days before the first national lockdown and set to baking 8+hrs per day 5 days a week providing a citywide food delivery service across Derby and Nottinghamshire collecting and delivering fresh fruit and veg, milk, juice, eggs etc too to keep you all fed when the supermarkets were locked down.

2021-22 - OUR FLAGSHIP STORE

12 Sadler Gate Derby

In September of 2022 after a lot of hard work we opened our flagship store on Sadler Gate boasting a downstairs open kitchen and cafe, first floor production kitchen and seating area and second floor private dining rooms!  

Unfortunately we saw challenge after challenge with a petrol crisis shortly after opening, then the winter resurgence of Covid (Omicron) that closed most of the city followed by the impact of Putin's war on Ukraine including spiking prices in flour and unaffordable electricity costs alongside a downturn in public spending due to the energy crisis we ended up going back to saving our skin and baking from home while everybody else closed around us.

2024 - AN EXCITING PARTNERSHIP

11 Sadler Gate Derby saw the opportunity for us to reopen a parlour in February 2024 thanks to Derby Heritage Centre with an upstairs parlour we spent 5 months producing and serving again though due to the buildings unsuitability and no reserves to pay for plumbing issues we had no choice but to leave the heritage centre and go back to producing as the business changed hands briefly.

2025 - BACK TO BASICS

Late 2024 it was apparent that issues had arose with production and pyclet availability with an unsuitable takeover so Katie took the reigns back before Christmas and revived Derby Pyclets once again to continue with a retail trade, building on direct customer and wholesale trade for the near future.

More to be updated very soon!