A Sweeter History

The story of 8 St Michael Street

For generations, people in Malton knew this little shop by one name: Mennells.

The building itself is much older. Dating from the early nineteenth century, 8 St Michael Street was built as a house and shop in dressed Yorkshire sandstone. Its shopfront was altered later in the nineteenth century, and today the building is Grade II listed.

But it was in 1926 that a story began which would become part of the memories of generations of Malton families.

Frances Mennell opened her confectionery here in 1926.
Mennells remained a family business for decades. Frances's daughter, Cynthia Wheater, eventually took over and was still behind the counter when the York Press spoke to her in 2003.

Cynthia remembered the difficult years of wartime sweet rationing, when there was sometimes so little to sell that the shop couldn't even put sweets in the window. At one point, she recalled, they had little more than a single box of Fry's Creams.

But she also remembered the children.

The National School once stood opposite the shop, on the site later occupied by Malton Library. During their breaks, children would sneak over the wall and make their way to Mennells for sweets.

When sweet rationing finally ended in 1953, the shop slowly returned to normal. For a generation of children who had grown up with rationing, suddenly there were sweets in Mennells that they had never seen before!

Mennells continued trading for many more decades, eventually passing from the family into new hands while retaining the name that had become so familiar in St Michael Street.

After almost a century, the confectionery eventually closed its doors — but we felt that such a long association with this little shop deserved to be remembered.

Today, a little of that nostalgia lives on. Rich chocolate-brown tones and a small selection of sweet treats pay homage to Mennells and to the generations who remember this little shop as a confectioner.

Home, sweet home.