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Descovich Bakery
Descovich Bakery
Situated on the corner of Talunga Park Road and Melrose street, alongside the Mount Pleasant Hotel.
Ignatz Descovich was born c1824 in Austria and farmed at Birdwood and Mount Pleasant. He established a bakery at Mount Pleasant in
The Totness Bakery c1914 after Bert Shanks bought the business from Tidys. L-R Randy Matthews, Bert Shanks (baker), Ned Page (baker's assistant), Edith Talbot, Loveday and George Talbot. Bert Shanks was just starting out in his career as the town's baker and pastrycook. (QWB)
Mount Pleasant Bakery
Mount Pleasant Bakery
George Phillis purchased block 7, now 128 Melrose street, from Henry Giles in 1866. He subsequently sold to William Haynes, of Stepney, a contractor, in 1869. Gustav Hittmann, a miller of Mount Pleasant then purchased the property in 1878. After the death of both Gustav and his wife Veronica the property came under the ownership of their sons, Richard and Charles, and in 1901 James Alfred Tidy, a baker of Mount Pleasant purchased it. It is not clear just when the building was built, but possibly by William Haynes.
Samuel John Sears, a farmer from Hundred of Forster, namely Nildottie, became the owner in 1909 before it was sold to Albert Headland Shanks in 1914. In the late 1930s Bert Shanks took out a loan and made improvements to the premises, with a large cellar being part of the rebuild. Ownership was transferred to Flora Elsie Lange in 1939 before Leonard Alfred Loechel then became the owner in 1950.
By the mid 1920s Bert Shanks had temporarily expanded into selling motor vehicles in addition to running a bakery.
A rebuild by Bert Shanks, inspired by his father-in-law Franklin Dewell, led to a construction of a cellar and improved buildings. A stone building in the back yard had upstairs accommodation for single male employees and downstairs storage for the flour.
During the time of ownership by Leonard Leochel a realignment of the block in 1959 included those either side of the original block 7, increasing the property surrounding the bakery, as well as selling a section of the blocks which ran along Showground road, to the rear of the premises. In 1964 ownership was taken over by Edgar Theodore Wegener, a storekeeper of Mount Pleasant. With his death in 1970 his wife Flora Etna Wegener took ownership and in 1973 Raymond Glenmore Mattiske and his wife, Beryl Phillis Mattiske became the new owners. Another change of hands occurred in 1976 when Albin Wohlfart became the new owner, having been one of the bakers who had worked at the Mount Pleasant Bakery.
The Mount Pleasant Bakery continues as such today, having been in business as a bakery for possibly 150 years.
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