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Sweets

Granelli's is a veritable sweet museum, an Aladdin's Cave of all things sugary, with the strapline "Old fashioned spice at an old fashioned price!" above the door.

Rosita Granelli (married name Hunt) took over the running of the business when her brother died, and she still lives on the premises with her sister. But the business began way back in the 1870s when two brothers emigrated to Sheffield from Italy...

Rosita Granelli (now Hunt)

Granelli Bros

"Before me, my brother and my sister it was my uncle and my father - the "Granelli Brothers." And it was their parents and grandparents before them," explains Rosita.

The Granelli brothers started their ice cream business in the West Bar area of the city in the 1870s.

"They settled on Scotland Street in the old Italian quarter - around Copper Street, Lambert Street," says Rosita. "The Italians seemed to settle in that quarter: two did ice cream; the others did terrazzo and mosaic, things like that." Granelli's first vehicle was a pony and cart.

Granelli Bros later bought the plot of land where West Bar police station stands now, but before long the premises on Broad Street near Duke Street and Park Square roundabout became available and the business expanded to sell sweets as well as ice cream. "They chose here because it had shops - a butcher's shop and a general shop," says Rosita.

Granelli's ice cream pony-and-cart

One day when Rosita was clearing out her office, she came across a box of old pencils dating back to 1937. They say 'Granelli Bros: Established over 60 years,' which puts the date that the business was established back to 1874.

A technicolour treat

The shop is jam-packed with jars, bottles, boxes and trays of sweets of every colour, shape, flavour and texture.

Kath has worked behind the counter for nine years and she's a fount of knowledge about all things sugary. She knows the name of all the sweets and where all the jars are kept - no mean feat when there's more than 200 varieties to choose from!

Granelli Bros pencils from 1937

"We've got Rainbow Drops, Jewel Drops, Chocolate Drops with little Hundreds and Thousands on top..." says Kath. "Pink and blue Bubble Bottles, Sour Mix, chocolate Mini Eggs, Dolly Mixtures - everyone knows what they are. Choc Lick is a good one, it's like chocolate powder. Choc Nibs look a bit like rabbit droppings but they're nice! Ha ha!... Cola Cubes, Pineapple Cubes which are square and hard with sugar round... We've got a lot of old fashioned ones, like sour Acid Drops... Black Bullets and Uncle Joe's Mint Balls..."

But out of all 211 + sweets Kath says her favourite sort is liquorice - especially Pontefract Cakes.

Yorkshire's sweet tradition

"Brandy snaps are the most unusual sweet I think," says Kath. "We've been getting them for a long time from a West Yorkshire firm called Wright's based in Brighouse. They make the brandy snaps themselves. They wrap the toffee around a wooden peg which gives it the tube shape."

Lots of the sweets sold at Granelli's are made by local firms. Maxon's are a Sheffield company, Willett's are from Chesterfield and of course Bassett's (of Liquorice Allsorts fame) was founded in Sheffield in 1842. Their factory is still in Hillsborough.

Rosita and Kath of Granelli's Sweet Shop

With the amount of sweets lining the walls you'd be forgiven for thinking that the main customers for this shop are children - but in fact there's a steady stream of workmen and other grown-ups who come in for their quick sweety fix during their breaks.

Kath explains that she does see a difference in what their younger and older customers buy: "Older people usually go for a jelly - something like Hard Gums - or perhaps a boiled sweet like Rhubarb & Custard.

"The younger people tend to go for soft jelly sweets like Fun Mix, Sour Mix, Gummy Bears, Giant Strawberries and also Strawberry and Bubblegum Millions... but they still buy old fashioned things like sherbet and Cream Soda too."

Granelli's ice cream van

Brian the Builder is one regular - his favourite is a packet of cigarettes and some peanut brittle!

"We do eat a lot of sweets ourselves," admits Kath. "We enjoy them... but we've got shelves so we do step aerobics - you get up and you get down! That's our exercise - so we don't need to go to the gym!"

Rosita speaks of the museum-like feel that the shop has: "People come here from far and wide for the old fashioned sweets you can't get anywhere else.

"They bring in their children or their grandchildren and they say, 'Now, my grandma used to bring ME in this shop to get sweets.' And the little boy will look around in wonder, open-mouthed - awestruck and mesmerised by the jars on jars on jars of brightly coloured sweets! And their grandma will say, 'I know what it is - he's never seen sweets in jars before! It's usually a packet at the supermarket checkout.'"

Kath with Yorkshire Mixture

"People are going back to the old fashioned type of sweet, more so. They like them not to be wrapped, like Yorkshire Mix or Fishes or Rhubarb & Custard. We keep prices down and we keep it traditional.

"It's the same with the ice cream too. Nowadays a lot of it is the soft stuff which is whipped and full of air, so it looks nice and you need less... But people come in and say 'Ooh, PROPER ice cream!' It's not like the other stuff isn't 'proper' - but they mean scooped hard, traditional ice cream with body in it."

The heritage ice cream van

Around the back of Granelli's shop is their fleet of ice cream vans. Nowadays the vehicles are built as standard ice cream vans with built-in fridges and room to stand. But in the early days the vans would be created from a bare chassis built up from scratch.

Granellis' CA Bedford ice cream van

Granelli's own one particularly old van: "We call it the Heritage Van," says Rosita. "It's a long wheel base Bedford CA - they're not made any more, they haven't been for years.

"I remember it being built from scratch. It's got a column change gear lever which breaks easily and it's very difficult to get parts."

Granelli Bros' earliest vehicle was a pony and trap, and later they sold ice cream from a highly decorated van. Rosita describes the vehicle:

"All these were brass poles. It went up to a dome in the middle, same as the pony cart. It was all open air - how they used to go out in cold weather in those vans, eh?!

"Painted on the roof inside were scenes from all around Sheffield - Toad's Mouth, Surprise View, Derwent Dam. Even now the older people come and tell me about it.

Granelli's early ice cream van

"It was highly decorated in gold leaf which today would cost a fortune. There's more signwriting on the ice cream serving hatch than on a whole vehicle today...

"All the glasswork was handwritten too - our shop door had a scroll saying "Granelli's" and "Fresh made ice cream,"听but sadly it got smashed. Now above the door it says, 'Old fashioned spice at an old fashioned price'."

Park Square before the roundabout

There's been a stall on The Moor and in Castle Market "from the year dot" but Rosita says Granelli's used to have several other small shops when she was young. She tells us what was in the area where Park Square roundabout is now:

Rosita and her family have spent their whole lives at the shop on Broad Street and she has vivid memories of what the area used to be like in the days before Park Square roundabout was built.

"You went out of Granelli's and there was a pub, The Lord Nelson, which joined on to us on the other side of the archway. Then there was a garage, another pub on the corner and a horse trough in the middle of the road. As well as the Lord Nelson there was The Samson on the corner of Broad Street and Duke Street.

View towards Granelli's and Hyde Park flats, 1970s

"There was Violet May's record shop, Plough Lane went down in between and further down we had another little shop in the middle next to Gunstone's the baker's. Then Hilton's the barber's was on the corner. There was a milliner's (a hat shop! imagine, down there!) and Boots the Chemist on the corner.

"There was Corker's fruit shop, the Post Office on the left, Park Pictures cinema was on South Street which is first left after where Park Square roundabout is now. Before you got to South Street there was a carpet shop and Benson's the furniture shop.

Kelly's Directory 1954: shops on City Rd

"The wholesale tobacconist and Shaw's the ironmongers were just below Park Pictures and Park Bingo - I remember the men from the ironmongers in their brown cloth smocks.

"Then听further down on the other side of the road, Granelli's had two more sweet shops! We had three altogether at one point. There's been a stall on The Moor and the original sweet shop in Castle Market from the year dot.

"The wholesale market with all the horses, drays and carts ran on sheaf street up to Dixon Lane [by Castle Market's entrance]. They were called 'The Avenues' - narrow cobbled streets running upwards. All the wholesale fruiterers were on there."

Park Hill, 1960s and 2007

Although Rosita lived a stone's throw from Park Hill school, she went to Notre Dame and Rawlinson School (now Sheffield College) - but she remembers Park Hill in its infancy:

"When Park Hill was built originally, it was fantastic. People were moving in there who had been on a waiting list for a house for years and years and years. They had them like little palaces, they were lovely, and the people were nice.

"Then over the years, Park Hill just went downhill. There was a bit of trouble really, in the end."

The future of Granelli's

It's been over 130 years, but what will happen to the famous Sheffield sweet shop next?

"The ice cream business is in your blood but young people now have so many other options and opportunities. Ice cream is a hard job - it's weather orientated, weather controlled, there's the mobile side of it... you have to work the holidays and it's seven days a week.

"My generation followed in the footsteps of the family business but today's generation, a lot of people in the business have found their sons and daughters have opted not to carry on."

:: by Grace Shaw