Central Otago’s early miners, small farmers and their families went to nearby towns to buy their bread and biscuits if they were not making their own.

In Clyde, or Dunstan as it was then known, Fred Jeffery opened a bakery and biscuit business in Sunderland St about 1873.

In 1875 he offered a partnership in the thriving business to John Fraser.

The business also sold fruit and drapery but another owner was on the way with even bigger visions.

Thomas Hodgson Bell was born in North Cumberland in England in 1844.

In 1863 he married Rachel Naylor — sister of well-known Central pioneer Benjamin Naylor Snr — in Durham, England and the couple are believed to have arrived in New Zealand on board Hudson in 1876.

On his arrival in Central Otago, Mr Bell quickly bought the Jeffery-Fraser business on the corner of Sunderland and Matau Sts.

Mr Bell immediately expanded the business focusing on first-class baking and confectionery.

He was soon renowned far and wide for imaginative and tasty confectionery.

The business expanded with a branch in Alexandra.

By 1882 business was going so well he ordered custom-built machinery from Burt Brothers, in Dunedin, and more was imported from England.

The following year he held a public meeting to discuss setting up a flour and oatmeal mill in the area, but nothing seemed to have come from that.

At the 1889-90 New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition Mr Bell gained the highest awards for both his biscuits and confectionery.

These awards prompted a six-month burst of advertising where he promised to supply goods at "prices to defy competition".

By 1894 a new imported biscuit-cutting machine was being operated by hand, although water power was being contemplated.

Butter was stored in a cellar where preserved eggs were also stored.

Through the decade Mr Bell continued supplying the gold fields with bread, biscuits and confectionery as well as an increasing number of fancy and complex wedding cakes.

However, in February 1900 Bell became seriously ill from a burst blood vessel and died a few days later aged 56.

Rachel Bell continued to run the business after her husband’s death.

She purchased the recipe for Mr J Montgomerie’s celebrated recipe for digestive brown bread, which it was claimed was not only "recommended by the medical faculty" but "will keep for weeks".

The Alexandra branch of the business was sold in 1903 to Kilgour and Son.

In 1905, and in failing health, Mrs Bell sold the Clyde business to Earnest Naylor, just months before her death.

Like many tales of history, there are a few loose threads in the story of the Bells’ bakery business.

The thriving business was sold to Earnest Naylor but what happened to all the innovative machinery?

Was it shifted to his new Sunderland St premises? Where is it now?

And what of the building, so lovingly restored and now home to the Central Cycle Trail Company? After Mr Bell’s time it became a hotel but who did that?

Perhaps someone out there can fill in the gaps?