Bangers and sinking ships: 510 years of butchery

RJ Balson and Son was originally founded in Bridport marketplace in 1515

Steeped in history, a small family butchers has been successfully trading in a market town for more than 500 years, first launching when Henry VIII was on the throne.

RJ Balson and Son has been serving up sausages in Bridport, Dorset, since 1515.

Originally founded in the market square in the days long before shops and high streets, the business moved into its current home in the centre of the town in 1892.

The latest generation of owners are proud of its long history, having "survived wars, plagues, fires and floods" and have some meaty tales to tell.

Radio Solent's Harry Kille-Smith went along to find out more.

Richard Balson is the 25th Balson to run the butchers and said while the next generation was "waiting in the wings" to take over, he was "not ready to go yet".

"When the high street started to become established in 1850/1880, we were renting the shop next door," he said.

When their current premises became available, the family bought it for £275 and have been there ever since.

"It doesn't seem much now but it was an awful lot of money in 1892."

Richard Balson grew up above the shop owned by his family

Growing up above the shop, Mr Balson said he knew from a young age that he was destined for butchery.

"I was always going to come into the business," he said.

"My brother was a professional footballer and everyone wants to be a footballer but you've got to be good enough so I stuck to being a butcher and I love every minute of it.

"I've been here for 55 years, working in the shop, most of that time I spent with my father and we had a lovely father-son relationship."

But it was hard work in the early days, he said.

"You used to have cycle on a bike with no gears, taking out a heavy basket of meat in the wind and the rain."

One of Mr Balson's favourite stories to tell is a claimed connection to the demise of Henry VIII's flagship, the Mary Rose, which sank in the Solent in 1545.

"It sunk because it was laden with our Tudor Rose sausages," he said.

A banger of a tale but is it a porky pie?

Mr Balson said: "I said this to a journalist once and he looked at me and said: 'Can you prove that?'

"I said to him: 'Well, you disprove it!'."

Mr Balson said he was confident his son would step up when the time comes but new shoots are springing up across the pond - and it may mean a rebrand to RJ Balson and Daughter.

His daughter Sarah is in the process of starting a US-based branch of the business in New York, said his wife.

Using the same family recipes, she is hoping to cater to "anybody that wants a good, decent banger", said Mrs Balson.