Our story
It started at a kitchen window
In the spring of 2017, Ruth Ellery was baking four loaves a night in a terraced house on Unthank Road and leaving them on the windowsill with an honesty box. By the summer it was forty loaves and a queue on the pavement.
Two years later she took over an old cobbler’s shop on St Benedicts Street, installed a deck oven that only just fitted through the door, and Bramble & Rye was born. The name came from the brambles in the back yard and the rye that went into her first starter.
“Bread should be worth getting up for.” — Ruth
Our story in years
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2017
The windowsill
Four loaves a night and an honesty box on Unthank Road.
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2019
St Benedicts Street
The shop opens with eight breads and Ruth’s mum on the till.
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2022
The café
Joss joins, the back room becomes twenty seats and brunch arrives.
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2025
The cake studio
A second oven and a corner just for celebration cakes.
The sourdough
36 hours, start to finish
Our country loaf is just flour, water, salt and Mabel, the rye starter Ruth has fed every day since 2016. Time does the rest: the long, cold rise is what gives the crumb its custardy shine and the crust its blisters.
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Day 1, 9am
Feed Mabel
The starter gets rye flour and warm water and wakes up bubbly by lunchtime.
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2pm
Mix & rest
Marsham Mill flour and water sit together for an hour before the salt goes in.
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3–6pm
Stretch & fold
Four sets of folds by hand, every 45 minutes, to build strength.
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8pm
Shape & chill
Shaped into linen baskets and left overnight in the cold room at 4°C.
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Day 2, 4am
Into the oven
Scored, steamed and baked dark. Out at 7:15am, on your table by breakfast.
Suppliers
Most of it comes from down the road
We buy from people we can visit, and we pay them on time.
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Marsham Mill
Flour · 14 miles
Stoneground heritage wheat, spelt and rye from a watermill on the Bure.
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Wensum Valley Dairy
Butter & milk · 9 miles
Cultured butter for our croissants, churned twice a week.
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Linnet Farm
Free-range eggs · 11 miles
Six hundred hens, one very opinionated farm dog.
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Kettle Lane Orchard
Apples & plums · 6 miles
Bramleys, Victorias and a press for the apple juice in the café.
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Wherry Coffee
Coffee · 1 mile
Roasted in a railway arch by the river and delivered by bike.
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Mousehold Heath hives
Honey · 2 miles
From a beekeeping club that meets in the pub on Thursdays.
The team
Floury hands
nine of us, two ovens, one Mabel
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Ruth Ellery
Founder & head baker. Up at 3am, asleep by 9.
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Joss Faulkner
Runs the café and the coffee. Knows every dog by name.
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Effie Marsh
Cake studio. Pipes a better ribbon than anyone in Norfolk.
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Tobias Lund
Pastry. Responsible for the cardamom knots and the queue.
Nothing wasted
Yesterday’s bread has a second life
Preorders mean we bake closer to what you’ll eat. What’s left becomes almond croissants, French toast and breadcrumbs, and anything still on the shelf at closing goes to the St Benedicts Community Larder.
Bread to the Larder in 2025
3,140 loaves
Baked to preorder
62%