Pontefract - Farmer Copleys

Farmer Copleys is nearly 10 years old, and a fantastic place to buy great Yorkshire food.  It's a one-stop shop, with a bakery, butchers, fruit and vegetables, and much more besides.

It's got a particularly good butchers department (10.5 metres long) with attractive displays, like these Yorkshire cushions:

When I called, they had some nice ribs of beef (21 day matured and perfect with Yorkshire pudding):

but I went for the Flat Ribs, which are really cheap, and taste beautiful when cooked slowly.

They do a nice line in pies, we also had had a very good steak pie:

The pork, apple and stuffing, and free range farmers' pies also looked good:

They grow their own fruit and vegetables - you can follow the crops live on their Facebook page.

What they can't grow on the farm, they try and source locally.  The Pontefract banana harvest is usually disappointing, so the bananas come by slow boat rather than by air, to reduce the carbon footprint.

Farmer Copleys is just outside Pontefract.  This town was the first place where liquorice mixed with sugar to make liquorice sweets as we know them today. The town even has a Liquorice Festival held in July.  At Farmer Copleys you can buy a variety of liquorice products.  There's liquorice  root:

(sticks which I used to chew on when I was a child) and Pontefract Cakes:

Did you know that when the first secret ballot in the UK was held (in Pontefract), the ballot box used was sealed using a Pontefract cake stamp?  

There was also liquorice ice-cream, and liquorice stout for sale:

which tasted better than I was expecting!

If you can't wait till you get home to have something to eat, there's the Moo Café:

where special diets (eg. coeliacs) are also catered for.

Outside there's Melanie's Florist:

and on Fridays and Saturday's Glenn from Whitby sells fresh fish and seafood.

There's different events throughout the year (they've just had a pumpkin Festival)  In the summer/autum there's a Maize Maze, and other activities for the kids.

Farmer Copleys
Ravensknowle Farm
Pontefract Road
Purston
Pontefract
West Yorkshire
WF7 5AF

Tel: 01977 600200

Web: www.farmercopleys.co.uk