Our story
The Dales have been making ice cream in Filey since 1879. Seven monarchs, two world wars, rationing, the arrival of the freezer, and a hundred and forty-seven summers on the same stretch of Yorkshire coast.
The beginning of it. A hundred and forty-seven years later the business still carries his name and is still run by his family, on the same coast.
Rob's figure — worth pinning down before we print itThis is the bit people will remember, and at the minute it's one line. Who was Robert? What was he doing before ice cream? Was it a cart, a shop, a horse and trap? Where in Filey did it start?
Three or four sentences from you turns this from a date into a story.
Anything at all between 1879 and 1952: who took it on after Robert, what the business looked like between the wars, what happened during rationing, when the first van appeared, when Scarborough came along.
Even half-remembered family stories are worth more here than perfect dates.
The family business is formally incorporated — company number 00508055 — and has been trading under that name ever since. Seventy-odd years on, it's still registered to The Dairy on Clarence Drive.
✓ Verified — Companies HouseWho were the "Sons"? And what prompted making it official in 1952 — new premises, a new generation coming in, the business getting too big to run off a handshake?
Every tub that goes out to a café, a kiosk, a farm shop or one of our own vans is made at the dairy on Clarence Drive. Same address, same job.
✓ Verified — registered office, Companies HouseTwo shops, our own vans out on the coast, and the trade round supplying cafés, kiosks and other vendors from Filey to Scarborough and inland.
Which generation are you, exactly? And who else is in it with you now? A line about the family working in it today is the thing that makes a café owner choose you over a national supplier.
“[A line from Rob goes here — what he'd say to somebody asking why it's lasted 147 years.]”Rob Dale · Dairydale Ice Cream
Help us fill the gaps
A hundred and forty-seven years leaves a paper trail, and most of it is in somebody's loft. Any of this is gold for the page:
Photograph it on your phone and send it over — no need to be neat about it. Anything with a date on turns a nice story into a provable one.
Send it to hello@dairydale.co.ukWholesale, van hire, and two shops on the coast.