Mansfield’s Robert Bowring won a trophy at Britain’s biggest pie awards. JEREMY LEWIS reports from Melton Mowbray Church.
Robert Bowring: ‘We had some spare shoulders of lamb so we diced it up, baked the pie and we’ve been doing it ever since. F
rom the pulpit of St Mary’s Church the Rector of Melton Mowbray blessed the assembled pies. With scores of
gimlet-eyed judges tightening their aprons and sharpening their knives, the pastry treats were not long for this world. Four hours later, the pies halved, quartered, sometimes wrecked and occasionally reduced to soggy crumbs, the decks were cleared, the scores compared and the trophies handed out to winners of the British Pie Awards. This year they included Mansfield’s farmer and butcher Robert B ow r i n g . “I started life as a farmer but it wasn’t a big enough farm to keep us going and we needed to diversify so I trained with the butcher Jimmy Wilson at North Wingfield,” says Robert. “It was a place with its own little abattoir at the back so after a while I came to do the lot: everything from farming cattle to butchering them and selling meat.”
Robert farms Angus, Hereford, Limousin and Charolais on 350 acres of Notts farmland, renting another 150 acres for grass. The beef cuts go into his chain of five shops and into several of the firm’s pies – a range that includes steak & Stilton and mince & onion pies. The pork, poultry and lamb used in his other pies is bought in, although from local farms. Recent awards include the trophy for the best 2lb pork pie at the Melton and Belvoir Agricultural Society Annual Show.
A PIE GUY
Lamb is not the most obvious choice of filling for a meat pie but Robert’s customers can’t get enough of them. “We ’ve only been doing it for about 18 m o n t h s ,” says Robert, 49. “We happened to have some spare shoulders of lamb so we diced it up and mixed it with rosemary and mint, baked the pie and we’ve been doing it ever since.”
It is particularly popular at the Bowring shop in Mansfield Woodhouse and it was popular with the Class 6 judges at the British Pie Awards at Melton Mowbray Church. Melton Mowbray, home of the eponymous hand-raised, water-crusted uncured pork pie, has become the venue of Britain’s biggest showdown for the manufacturers of all types of pies, from the EU-protected local treat to
steak and speciality pies, dessert pies, football club pies and Cornish and other pasties. There were a record 900 entries this ye a r. Walker & Son of Leicester won both the Melton and general Pork Pie classes but the Supreme Champion was the Pub Pie class winner, Dunkley’s offering of chicken, ham, mushroom and buttered leeks in a suet pastry, baked in Wellingborough. Th a t ’s something for Robert Bowring to aim
f o r.
Born at Warsop Windmill into a family of pig farmers, he developed a passion for rearing his own cattle and, once he had mastered butchery, he formed a pasture-to-window display operation that now embraces two farms, a distribution store, five shops in Notts and Derbyshire plus a payroll of 30.
Robert is supported in the operation by his wife Lynn, who does much of the paperwork and accompanies her husband to farmers’ markets throughout the region, and three of their four children: Thomas concentrates on the farms, George on butchery and Alice on baking (Ben works outside the business as a joiner). Robert Bowring Farmers and Butchers has shops in Mansfield, Mansfield Woodhouse, Shirebrook, Bolsover and Chesterfield and has stalls at farmers’ markets in Bingham, Newark, Retford and Melton Mowbray. More information: w w w. r o b e r t b ow r i n g . c o . u k
NOTTINGHAMSHIRE TODAY 83
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