Last summer I was researching a book about cricket in the north of England. My plan was that I would turn up in small towns and villages such as Bacup, Settle or Kirkheaton, buy some delicacies from the nearest baker and go and watch a match. I should say that I wasn't looking for organic, wholefood, artisan bakers (such as the estimable Village Bakery in Melmerby), or posh patisseries (like the very fine Leeds-based Croissant D'Or chain, or the Café Royal in Newcastle). No, what I wanted were the sort of commercial bakers where you could buy a cheese slice and a Yorkshire curd tart, or a piece of egg-and-bacon pie and a coconut haystack with a glace cherry on the top. I was looking for the sort of place my Mum would have called into on her way home from work when she felt the family deserved a bit of a treat. Finding local cricket proved easy enough, but unearthing that sort of local bakery proved altogether more difficult.
Typical was a North Riding market town in which I'd worked as a teenager. I recalled it having four different bakers shops, filled with the confectionary of my childhood – vanilla slices, jap cakes and elephant's feet (big choux buns filled with cream). When I arrived last July however there were just two, and both of them were Greggs.
Don't get me wrong. I'm from the north-east and I've nothing against Greggs – heaven knows, I've eaten enough of their cheese-and-onion pasties and caramel doughnuts over the years – it's just that over the past decade, Greggs have chomped up all the opposition. Small local chains such as Hills, Sparks and Birketts have all been gobbled down, making the northern high street more homogenous than ever. Luckily, a few plucky establishments still survive for those who want to pick up a picnic.
Elizabeth Botham & Sons, North Yorkshire
The Bettys of the North Yorkshire seaside, Botham's has a couple of branches in Whitby and one in the nearby village of Sleights. Yorkshire brack, a rich fruit loaf is the thing to go for here, though the curd tarts are good too.
• 35-39 Skinner Street, Whitby; 73 Coach Road, Sleights; botham.co.uk
Bolton Market, Greater Manchester
One of the gastronomic highlights of the north-west, the market hall features half-a-dozen stalls selling authentic Lancashire baking. Flat cakes (a sort of working class Eccles cake) and little two-bite hot pot pies stand out.
• Ashburner Street; bolton.org.uk/markh.html
Bondgate Bakery, Otley, West Yorkshire
Yorkshire curd tarts (or cheescakes as we used to call them before that word was hi-jacked by the US-version) are one of the great joys of the White Rose County and they are as good here as anywhere. The custard tarts are a treat, too.
• 30 Bondgate; +44 (0)1943 467516
Bettys, North Yorkshire
A gilded palace of old-fashioned Yorkshire baking (even if it was established by a Swiss family). Expensive and you have to queue, but the fat rascals – smooth rock buns with glace cherries, almonds and currants - are worth the wait.
• Branches in Harrogate, York, Ilkley and Northallerton; bettys.co.uk
Cissy Greens, Rossendale, Lancashire
Haslingden in Rossendale is unlikely to feature on any tourist map of Britain, but Cissy Greens is worth a detour for uncompromising Lancastrian grub. Excellent cheese-and-onion pies and an authentic hand-crimped sad cake (like a Chorley cake but with less fruit).
• 30 Deardengate, Haslingden, Rossendale; +44 (0)1706 215099
Halls Bakery, Chorley, Lancashire
Four branches, all in the Lancashire town of Chorley, the largest in Eaves Lane. Specialities include excellent butter pies (a savoury pie filled with sliced potatoes, onion and butter), sweet and filling jam slice and, well, Chorley cakes.
• 303 Eaves Lane, 15 Eaves Lane, 93 Collingwood Road and 47 Chapel Street; hallsbakery.co.uk
Harry's Muffins, Bury Covered Market, Greater Manchester
The muffins here are not the fancy US things, but oven-bottom baked bread. Harry's also has fantastic – and gigantic - Eccles and Chorley cakes and delicious whinberry pies (which are what bilberries are called round Bury).
Hazelmere Bakery, Grange-over-Sands, west Cumbria
Smart bakery and cafe in Grange-over-Sands, west Cumbria. Nice gingerbread men and even better vanilla slices complete with the sort of icing you can only really eat by licking it off your fingers.
• 1-2 Yewbarrow Terrace; hazelmerecafe.co.uk
Hudson's Ice Cream Shop, Chatburn, nr Clitheroe, Lancashire
As its name implies more of a sweet shop than a bakers, but the lady who runs Hudson's bakes the best raspberry buns I've ever had. And if you've lived in the north of England for nearly 50 years, that's a fair quantity, I can assure you.
• 2 Downham Road, Chatburn, Clitheroe
Sterchi's of Filey, North Yorkshire
An old-fashioned – operating since the 1920s – East Riding seaside confectioners that specialises in chocolate (the home-made walnut whips are worth stopping for), but also does a nice line in traditional northern cakes, the best of which is an incomparable jap fancy.
• 40 Murray Street, Filey; sterchis.co.uk, +44 (0)1723 513120
• Harry Pearson's latest book is Slipless in Settle, published by Little Brown at £12.99
