The history of Pallett’s Bakery and the Old Bakery

There’s a good reason why the aroma of home-baked bread can be used as a tactic at a house-viewing. Or supermarkets deliberately place the in-store bakery just inside the entrance door. As soon as the warm scent of risen baked bread hits the nostrils, the feeling overcomes you; a memory awakens.

For most people born at the end of the 20th century, the smell of baking bread might stir the imagination. Of a picture-book past filled with cosy family kitchens rather than hot, high-street bakery counters. But for the generations whose childhood goes back to the years immediately following World War Two, most will instantly recall a time when their town or village really did have its own bakery.

And so it was in Bushey too.

Another old photo of Park Road (Image: Kelvin Graham)

Pallet's Bakery, also known as The Old Bakery, first appeared at 53 Park Road around 1863.

The earliest memories of the bakery by those still with us today may only reach as far back as the 1930s and 1940s. The earliest stories tell of Pallets “shop” being a daily essential for supplying fresh bread to the local neighbourhood. None more so than during World War Two.

Although bread was not rationed until after the war ended in May 1945, the Federation of Bakers replaced the white loaf in 1942 with a fortified wholemeal bread, known as the ‘National Loaf’. It contained added vitamins, particularly calcium, intended to prevent nutritional deficiencies known to cause childhood rickets.

Unfortunately, the ‘National Loaf’ was widely disliked for being “grey, mushy and unappetising”. Most people preferred white bread, not least, the youngsters. It seems Mr Pallet came to the rescue of those young tastebuds! By baking a tray of bread using white flour for the children living in Park Road. “When the war was on, they used to give us local kids these special white bread rolls they made”.

“Most tastiest bread I ever had and still drool over”

The Old Bakery on Park Road in 2026 (Image: Kelvin Graham)

There is also mention made of “Archie”- thought to be Mr Pallet, the owner - who both baked and delivered the bread himself in a big basket. According to one veteran Bushey local, “It was the most tastiest bread I ever had and still drool over it now”.

It’s a sentiment that’s widely and consistently shared by many who grew up at that time and, in the years, following the war. Here’s a brief selection retrieved from online forums:

“I remember the little triangular-shaped rolls that Mr Pallett made. I used to go to the bakers on my way home from the paper round. The rolls would still be warm and I‘d have three eaten before I got home. Goodness, I can taste them to this day, never found better tasting ones, either.”

“Oh yes, I remember the bakers in Park Road. You had to get there early or they would sell out of the first batch”.

“In the late 50s, I used to go to the bakers in Park Road on my way to school and pick up a loaf of brown bread and take to school for the canteen staff”.

“Back in the days, the bakers would put people’s Sunday roast in their oven, and the locals would have a pint in the Swan while it cooked”.

“When we used the Swan in Park Road in the mid-70s, I would get a loaf from the bakery. Was told to wrap in a tea towel and should last a few days. And it did”.

The Swan Public House, a single-room Victorian house built in 1866, is located at 25 Park Road - only a few doors down from the Old Bakery - and is still in operation today.

During the last years of the 20th century, the bakery was converted into a multi-use retail property. But the Old Bakery lives on – in name only - on a wonderfully evocative sign above the door; quietly announcing its relatively long-held role as antique furniture repairers, and artist’s studio and gallery.

Today, a pilastered frontage features a preserved decorative frieze, panelled base, and a projecting, moulded cornice over the main window. A distinctive feature is a wide entrance built into the south-end of the building, originally designed to give horse-drawn delivery carts access to the rear baking ovens.

Since 1987, Park Road has been designated as being part of a further extension of the Bushey High Street Conservation Area, first created in 1973.