The Chocolate Works, also known as Terry's Chocolate Works, was the confectionery

factory A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. ...

Terry's Terry's is a British chocolate and confectionery maker, formerly based in York, England, until 2005, and re-established in 2019 as Terry's Chocolate Co and based in London. The company was founded in 1767. The company's headquarters and fact ...

York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. Opened in 1926, it closed in 2005 with the loss of 300 jobs, with production moved to other

Kraft Foods The second incarnation of Kraft Foods is an American food manufacturing and processing conglomerate, split from Kraft Foods Inc. in 2012 and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. It became part of Kraft Heinz in 2015. A merger with Heinz, arran ...

sites in mainland

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. Today, the site is being redeveloped as a mixed-use residential/commercial

real estate Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more general ...

development.

History

Construction

In 1923, Frank and Noel Terry joined the family business, ''Terry's of York''. They revamped the company, launching new products, and bought a site off Bishopthorpe Road, York on which to develop a new factory. Built in an

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

style, the factory known as ''Terry's Chocolate Works'' included a distinct clock tower.

Production

Opened in 1927, products including the Chocolate Apple (already introduced in 1924),

Terry's Chocolate Orange Terry's Chocolate Orange is a chocolate product created by Terry's in 1932 at Terry's Chocolate Works in York, England. The brand has changed ownership several times, and production was moved to Eastern Europe in 2005. Since 2018, the Terry' ...

(1932), and Terry's All Gold (1932) were all produced onsite. With the onset of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, part of the factory was taken over by F. Hills and Sons of

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

, with some of Terry's staff helping with the manufacture and repair of aircraft propeller blades. The Chocolate Works continued to produce Terry's products, which were regularly included in troops' rations, and it took on the manufacture of chocolate for London firm Charbonnel & Walker. In 1978, Terry's was acquired by Colgate-Palmolive for about £17 million. The new owners developed the Chocolate Lemon, which proved to be a failure. The company was sold again a few years later to

United Biscuits United Biscuits (UB) is a British multinational food manufacturer, makers of McVitie's biscuits, Jacob's Cream Crackers, and Twiglets. The company was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. In ...

for £25 million, forming the bulk of their confectionery division. By 1985, production and profits had increased substantially. A new plant was built specifically for production of the Chocolate Orange. After UB ran into financial difficulties, in 1993 they sold their entire confectionery division to

for £220 million, who amalgamated it with Jacobs Suchard to create Terry's Suchard. From 2000, the company brand was changed from ''Terry's of York'' to simply ''Terry's'', reducing the company's links to the city. Production was also scaled back, with just UK products and Terry's Chocolate Orange, Terry's All Gold and Twilight made for the international market.

Closure

In 2004, Kraft Foods decided to switch production of remaining products All Gold and Chocolate Orange to factories in

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, Sweden,

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and

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, and close the plant. The factory closed on 30 September 2005.

Redevelopment

Bought by developers Grantside, they consulted local people on how to develop the site, renamed ''The Chocolate Works''. Their initial proposed development was rejected by the

City of York Council City of York Council is the municipal governing body of the City of York, a unitary authority in Yorkshire, England. It is composed of 47 councillors, one, two, or three for each of the 21 electoral wards of York. It is responsible for all local ...

. In February 2010, with the Grade II listed Time Office and Art Deco clock tower secured and scheduled for refurbishment and despite objections from the

Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment The Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) was an executive non-departmental public body of the UK government, established in 1999. It was funded by both the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for C ...

, the firm was given

planning permission Planning permission or developmental approval refers to the approval needed for construction or expansion (including significant renovation), and sometimes for demolition, in some jurisdictions. It is usually given in the form of a building per ...

for a £165 million mixed-use of residential, commercial and leisure. The eventual scheme is projected to create more than 2,700 new jobs in new and refurbished offices, two hotels, shops, bars, cafés and restaurants, over 250 homes, a nursery, care home and medical centre. Redevelopment started in 2011, with removal of asbestos by trained and certified contractors, followed by demolition of non-scheduled buildings in early 2012. In April 2013, the site was acquired by joint developers Henry Boot Developments and David Wilson Homes.

References

External links

The Chocolate Works redevelopment
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chocolate Works Grade II listed buildings in York Manufacturing plants in England British shadow factories Art Deco architecture in England Industrial buildings completed in 1926