A potted history
The Jumble Room has been in Andy and Chrissy's family for more than 50 years it started life as Grasmere's first shop in around the 1700's where among other things Grasmere Rushbearing Gingerbread was made and sold. This variety, unlike the biscuit variety that is also made in the village is soft and sponge-like and was and still is distributed free to the children and helpers of the village on Rushbearing day.

Rushbearing Is a local festival that dates back hundreds of years to when there was no floor in the village church and it  got a bit smelly (due to the  burying of people inside) and dusty. So every August the villagers would go to the lake and collect rushes after which they would have tea and be rewarded with gingerbread. Although the floor is now made of slate the ritual still continue's today!

A good grounding Chrissy's family had the bakery next door to the jumble room for the majority of the last century her father the baker and her mother a confectioner  supplying all the local hotels with everything from breakfast buns to afternoon teacakes. It is from this tenuous connection that the aquisition of The Jumble Room came about. Although Andy would have you believe that the room was won in some smokey card game in a dark corner of the lamb public bar it's slightly off the mark but not that far!

Good Intentions John Dixon found it very difficult to start in buisness and when he decided to let the room he often let it for nothing to allow people get a start. Even towards the end of it's letting years before we took it on ourselves we always kept the rent very low as he wished. So when we got chance of it ourselves three years ago we decided the jumble Room should be more about quality, old fashioned value's and a friendly warm atmosphere, a haven to relax and hide from this hectic world of ours

 

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