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Burr's of Tongue History Project

Peter Burr purchased the store in 1932 and worked there until he retired in 1939 when his two sons Gordon and Leslie bought him out. Gordon later took full charge and ran the business with his wife, Tot, for many years.  Peter and Anne moved to Tain and named their house "Dunvarrich".

Marjory Strachan, the youngest of Peter Burr's family, died on April 10th, aged 103.

Gordon & Tot

Burrs ran a bus and van delivery service which covered a large geographical distance with regular van runs to Durness, Laid, Strathnaver, Altnaharra, Melness, Bettyhill, Melvich, Strathy and Thurso.

Burr also stocked a smaller shop in Melness.

Their own bakehouse where bread was baked, sliced and wrapped in Burrs own distinctive wrapping paper.

“Burr’s bread freshly baked every day”

 

 

Melness Shop

Bakehouse Boys

The bakehouse supplied the tea-rooms and shop with bread, rolls and cakes.

Lorries frequently travelled south to collect flour for the bakehouse, 2 tons at a time.

 

Work, for the bakers, began at 2am and late-returning lorry drivers were glad to share the warmth of the bakehouse and sample the goods. Yeast came from a distillery every week.  Bakers waited until the yeast had risen and fallen twice before they made the dough. The bread boards were 5ft long and were filled with loaves.  Once loaded the boards were carried on their heads to the back store. Cookies were steamed in a big wooden cupboard to make the dough more pliant.

The baker had books filled with bread recipes. 

 

Bread was baked in the bakehouse, as were brown and white rolls and caraway biscuits thick with seeds.  Loaves were baked in lots of twelve, four loaves wide. A single loaf was called a half loaf and 2 half loaves made a quarter, not exactly what we are taught in school where 2 quarters make a half!  Each loaf had to weigh 2lb 12 oz and Robbie would break off a chunk if a loaf was overweight.

Large scrapers were used to clean the dough off the table which was made of a special hard wood. 

 

You could see the fire as sometimes, doors were left open to regulate the temperature.

Sometimes the bakers stayed in Dunvarrich.

 

When the bread cutting machine came the bread had to be cooled before being cut and wrapped in Burr’s distinctive wrappers which were purple and green with a picture of Ben Loyal on them.

There was a very busy tea room catering for employees, locals and visitors including regular bus parties.

 

Joan & Margaret in Tearoom Uniform

 

Tearoom

 

Catering

 

Dunvarrich was always open house. Staff often got dinner or tea there. Burr’s tea-rooms which were “open all hours” and kept very busy.  Tourist buses were catered for and passengers from Burr’s own buses, including the Picture Bus which arrived back late on a Saturday night, were all provided with a meal or High Tea.  Old Folks’ Parties, as they would then be called, were held in the tea-rooms.


Staff dined there and packed lunches were provided for drivers going further afield; these perks were free.  The main menu consisted of bacon & eggs or ham salad and the bakery provided fresh rolls, bread and cakes. Staff wore white aprons.  The floor was covered in linoleum with a square of carpet in the middle.  Burr’s tea-rooms were very, very popular but staff had a long day, not finishing sometimes till 9pm.

 

Any food left over at the end of the day went to feed Charlie’s pigs.

 

You could enter the kitchen by a separate door so you didn’t have to go through the tearooms. The toilet doors had penny-slot locks on them, unlike in Dolly’s tearooms where a jam jar was left out for pennies. The tearooms were kept very busy with frequent tour buses and visiting football teams and personnel from the RAF base at Durness.

The tearooms also catered for local weddings and other gatherings, such as the annual clipping at Strathmore.

 

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