Gawith Hoggarth & Co.

Gawith Hoggarth & Co. is a pipe tobacco and snuff maker operating in Kendal, Cumbria, on the edge of England's Lake District. The firm was founded in 1887 through the partnership of William Henry Gawith and Henry Hoggarth Jr., and took over the water mill at Helsington Laithes immediately after its founding. A present-day carrier of the Kendal tobacco-making tradition, whose roots reach back to 1792, the company shares a family tree with Samuel Gawith; it is known for its rope tobaccos, its dark fire-cured blends, and its distinctive "Lakeland" scent.

Family Tree and History

The firm's origin traces to Thomas Harrison, who went to Glasgow in 1792 to learn the tobacco trade. In 1805 Harrison founded a tobacco manufactory in Kendal called "Harrison & Brocklebank" with chemist Thomas Brocklebank. The business passed to the Gawith family when his granddaughter Jane married Samuel Gawith. In the nineteenth century, one branch that split off within the family continued under the name Samuel Gawith, while the partnership William Henry Gawith formed with Henry Hoggarth Jr. took the name Gawith Hoggarth & Co.

According to records, the family business operated from the building on Lowther Street in Kendal from the 1830s onward; the company moved to a modern facility in 1993. Management stayed within the family across generations: in the twentieth century Geoffrey Gawith, and then John Gawith, ran the firm; today it is headed by fourth-generation Rachel and Chris Gawith. In 2015 the two cousin-firms merged under one roof; in this way the Gawith branches that had split in the nineteenth century came back together in Kendal.

The Last Bearer of Traditional Formats

What sets Gawith Hoggarth apart is that it keeps alive production methods the tobacco industry has largely abandoned. Century-old machines and old-fashioned methods are still used in production today; the firm is counted among the last independent traditional producers of this scale left in England. Its main areas of expertise are as follows:

• Rope tobaccos (rope/twist): This old cut, obtained by twisting and winding the leaves like rope, is kept alive through products such as Rum Twist and Brown Bogie; the smoker rubs a slice cut from the rope before use.

• Kendal Kentucky: Strong, smoky blends based on Dark Fired Kentucky leaf, cured with wood-fire smoke, are among the firm's classics.

• Snuff: The production of snuff — tobacco reduced to a fine powder for nasal use — is one of the firm's oldest specialties, associated with its water-mill tradition.

Lakeland Scent

The signature most associated with the brand's name, however, is the "Lakeland scent." This floral, faintly soapy flavoring specific to the Lake District is applied to a range of blends; its best-known example is Ennerdale Flake, a pressed, thinly sliced tobacco. The Lakeland style is considered a distinct branch within aromatic blends and is known for sharply dividing lovers from haters with its pronounced character: some smokers consider the scent a nostalgic English classic, while others find it overpowering. It is also generally accepted that the style has remained largely confined to Kendal today.