Histories

1920, Herbert's Bakery formed in Down Ampney by Thomas and Mabel Herbert, they had six children including David.

1953, David Herbert's first bakery opens in Bristol. The Down Ampney bakery could no longer support such a large and growing family, so David followed his brother Joe to Bristol and opened his own bakery.

David Herbert stuck to his guns and kept making bread the traditional way, keeping miles away from the newly popular Chorleywood process. He went on to run a baking empire in Bristol and Bath with over twenty shops. People always wanted his bread, there was market for it, so he stuck to his ways and expanded.

David always believed that anyone could bake, he would employ ex prisoners and teach them how to bake. In the 1980’s David bought a Mill and grew his own flour on the Cotswolds escarpment to mill for his bakeries.

In 1980, David Herbert bought Chipping Sodbury butchery business from Stuart Hobbs. Trevor and Polly quickly set up their bakery and home here and started to run it as the bakery and butchery it is now. They lived upstairs with the first of their six children Tom, George and Clementine.

In 1985 John, Marjorie and Sam Wells bought Herbert's bakery, Chipping Sodbury from Trevor. Trevor had put the business on the market to return to work at the Mill for his father, David Herbert.

Their sons Clive and Marcus soon joined them to run the renamed Hobbs House Bakery. In 1989 Trevor rejoined the brothers at the bakery in the High Street until, having outgrown the premises in 1992, they moved the bakery production to Hatters Lane where it still is now.