Pie ‘n’ Mash or a Cockney Love Story

08/03/2026

Pie ‘n’ Mash or a Cockney Love Story

Confession time. I love pie and mash. I love pie. I love mash. However, who can dispute that one of the greatest marriages in history is that of The Pie with The Mash. With the addition of gravy, or liquor if you are a Cockney, it is pure genius.

Today we are going on a journey incorporating Pie ‘n’ Mash, the Penny Dreadful, Sweeney Todd and finishing at the great Stanley Holloway. “Wiv a little bit o’ blooming luck” we will.

We may even throw in a bit of Terry Pratchett just for fun.

“How so?” I hear you cry. Well buckle up and off we go.

A potted history of pie ‘n’ mash, a Cockney classic

Eel pie originated in the early 1800s in the East of London as the docks developed. It was a nutritious and cheap meal for dock workers and was usually sold from handcarts by hawkers or from market stalls. As the pie progressed other fillings such as mince beef were also used.

In the early 1840s the first known pie and mash shop opened in Southwark. When Henry Blanchard’s shop opened, they added the mash to the pie and gawd blimey the first pie and mash shop was born.

At the start of World War II the Pie and Mash shops were threatened by food rationing and almost closed, but an outcry followed and they were reprieved to become a staple quick and filling meal for everyone on the home front.

The other great British institution the Fish and Chip shop was also saved and remained open for the duration of the war.

Originally called Eel Pie shops the number of Pie and Mash shops has plummeted in the last decades as have the number of eels to be found in the River Thames.

As few people eat eel any more, the main dish sold in the remaining shops is of minced beef. The pie was traditionally made with a suet pastry bottom and a short or puff pastry lid, and usually served with a helping of ‘liquor’ or parsley sauce to you and me.

Posh pie and mash at The Park View near Preston Park in Brighton

In 2025 proposals were made to Parliament to declare a Traditional Speciality Guaranteed label for the dish as has been done for the Cornish Pasty and Bramley Apple Pie. The campaign has been supported by Danny Dyer no less.

The Modern Cockney Festival in 2024 and 2025 also promoted a Pie ‘n’ Mash week to follow British Pie Week. If you are a pie lover like me you will already know that this occurs in March.

And now for the Penny Dreadful

Where pie ‘n’ mash was a cheap food for the working class, so the Penny Dreadful was a cheap read for the increasingly literate working class. Published weekly in serial form from the early 1830s and costing an extremely reasonable 1d, they mass produced very lurid works of fiction. And of course, sooner or later pies were sure to be involved.

Enter, ‘The String of Pearls : The Sailor’s Gift’ a story serialised between 1846 and 1847 in which we are introduced to Sweeney Todd, ‘The Demon Barber of Fleet Street’ who murders his customers who are then baked into pies by his accomplice Mrs Lovett. These pies are then sold about the streets of London by unsuspecting hawkers. Mash is not mentioned so I assume just pies are sold.

The story of Sweeney Todd was probably written by a prolific author of Penny Dreadfuls by the name of James Malcolm Rymer. He was also an important writer in the popularisation of Vampires alongside the likes of Bram Stoker. James Malcolm Rymer died on 11^th August 1884 and is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery, London.

And on to Stanley Holloway

Stanley Holloway, he of Alfred P. Doolittle fame in My Fair Lady recorded an album of Music Hall songs called ‘Ere’s ‘Olloway’ in 1958. Included on this album was a song called, ‘Sweeney Todd, the Barber’

Sweeney Todd the Barber, by God he were better than the play

Sweeney Todd the Barber, “I’ll polish them off” he used to say

His clients through the floor would slope

It goes on on much the same vein, I have included a link if you wish to get more.

In my ‘umble opinion you’ve really hit the big time when Stanley Holloway records a song about you.

Stanley Holloway died in 1982 and is buried at St Mary the Virgin Church in East Preston, West Sussex.

And finally I promised a bit of Terry Pratchett

In Terry Pratchett’s 2012 book, ‘Dodger’, the character of Dodger is called a hero when he goes to Sweeney Todd’s barber shop for a shave and ends up disarming him of his razor as the police arrive to arrest him. To Dodger, Sweeney is not a monster but a man who has been driven mad by the sights he saw as a barber surgeon in the Napoleonic War and is haunted by the ghosts of those he could not save.

“He wasn’t a demon, mister, although I reckon he may have seen Hell, and I ain’t a hero, sir, I really ain’t. He wasn’t bad, he was mad, and sad, and lost in his’ead.”

And finally, from me a piece of advice, if you should ever go to the theatre to see a production of Sweeney Todd, never sit in the front row. This, I learnt the hard way.

And there you have it, thanks for joining me for Pie ‘n’ Mash week and for all those in the Cockney Diaspora I hope you enjoy a lovely plate of pie, mash and liquor washed down with a steaming mug of tea.

Join me on again on the 31^st March 2026 for Women’s History Month when I will be discovering more about some interesting women in Wrexham’s graveyards.

Further reading and research

Pie and Mash

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pie_and_mash

https://www.pierate.co.uk/p/pie-mash-shops.html