Family ice cream shop celebrates 100th anniversary

Winstones, near Stroud, has been run by the same family four 100 years

An ice cream shop run by the same family for four generations has celebrated its 100th year in business.

Winstones, which runs an ice cream parlour on Rodborough Common near Stroud, Gloucestershire, has marked the centenary milestone with a weekend of music, magic and a children's show.

An anniversary book has also been published, cataloguing family photographs from the business over the decades, showing how founder Albert Winstone launched the brand - starting with treats sold from the sidecar of his motorcycle.

"I think he'd be absolutely amazed, to think it's got this far," said Albert's son Frank, 88, who took on the business from his father.

Albert Winstone set up the business from his motorbike sidecar in 1925

He added: "He'd taken a bit of a risk putting me in charge, but now his great-grandson is in charge - it's great.

"I suppose every generation learns from the last one."

Tom Vear, who now owns and runs the business, said reaching the milestone was "a huge achievement for a local business and for our family".

Frank Winstone took on the running of the business from his father

The business's ice cream has attracted about 180,000 customers a year in recent years, he said.

A busy weekend would see between 4,000 and 5,000 tourists and locals alike through the doors, he added.

The businesses described its flavours as "quintessentially English, quintessentially Gloucestershire, with a Cotswold-esque feel about it,"

Mr Vear said: "We try to have something so, every time you look in the cabinet, there's something to captivate each person or interest each person, rather than flavours you might expect.

"We've tried to keep Winstones in its position of a local business with a local feeling - it's certainly not a national product, it's a Cotswolds product.

Tom Veal said the Winstones product was "quintessentially Gloucestershire"

To mark the centenary, Winstones has also released a run of limited-edition T-shirts, a new flavour and has hosted music and entertainment across the weekend.

Customers Jeanie and Roger Cole told the BBC they had been coming to the ice cream parlour their entire lives.

"I've been coming since I was a babe in arms, nearly 70 years, and it's been a family tradition to celebrate birthdays and family parties by coming here and having a Winstones ice cream," Mrs Cole said.

"It's a family name."

Jeanie and Roger Cole said they had grown up visiting the shop on Rodborough Common