The 200-year-old Scottish bakery up for sale in scenic market town

Now a bakery renowned as Scotland’s oldest is up for sale for the first time in the business’s 200-year history.

Alexander Taylor has been a staple of the town of Strathaven since the bakery opened in 1820, but has been officially put on the market.

Husband-and-wife team Claire and Barry Taylor are the sixth generation of their family to run the business, but have now decided it is time to move on from the Bridge Street premises.

“We've always known that we can't do what we do forever and we feel like we have put a long shift in,” Mrs Taylor told the BBC. “I've had people say 'I hope you never sell' and come up to me in absolute horror. But the main thing is we don't want to run out of enthusiasm."

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The couple met while studying painting at art school in Cheltenham and moved back to Strathaven to help with the family business. They worked in the bakery before buying it from Mr Taylor’s parents when his father was no longer able to run the business.

While there might be a temptation to pass the bakery on to their adult children, Mrs Taylor said she does not think they should feel burdened with it.

They did all work together during Covid lockdown, something Mrs Taylor said was “probably my favourite memory from the last 35 years working here”.

“It was strangely really enjoyable and I feel proud of that time,” she recalled.

But now with one of the children at university and the other a keen cyclist, Mrs Taylor said: "In any other walk of life you wouldn't necessarily expect that you would do the same job as your parents have done.

“It is a unique thing for businesses that are family-run and what the Taylor family has done, it's quite an unusual thing for it to be in the same family for so long."

As with any business, this historic outlet has had to change and adapt over the years.

The bakery - once one of seven in the town - is known for its sourdough bread. It is the only bakery remaining in Strathaven today.

Mr Taylor said: "In the Victorian era, my great-grandfather began to develop it [the business] more because there used to be a courtyard at the back.

“Then in the 1920s, Strathaven became a town people would come to for day trips as the coaches which ran from Ayrshire to Edinburgh would stop there. So my family did a lot of catering towards that. There weren't catering companies so people relied on the bakeries."

Mrs Taylor said of the bakery today: “We've come full circle. People are really appreciating the places that are unique to their area again and I think we've become an institution in Strathaven.

"People are met here with a friendly face and we're part of a mix of things that make this town what it is."