In the days before supermarkets selling milk, the local milk retailers were the final link in the supply chain between the farmer and the home. Some farmers retailed their own milk but all sold pasteurised bottle milk from West Marton Dairies. At one time the local depot was here on Valley Road but then as this became too small, the Dairy took some space in the farm buildings at the bottom of Vicarage Road. The site was called Bare Banks Laithe and the dairy installed a walk in fridge for use in summer and paved the floor with cast iron grids set in concrete which gave the best surface for dragging stacks of metal crates across when wet. This was in use by the late 1960s and I can remember delivering Barlick Bottles there. We used to slide the crates down a metal slide made of heavy angle iron which hooked on the side of the wagon flat.
There is still a bottle fridge in the old gas works yard serving the retailers but I don't know who supplies that these days. Certainly not West Marton, another forgotten corner.
