SW Doughty - Celebrating 100 Years

For family run traditional butchers S.W. Doughty of Doddington, 2019 is indeed turning out to be an extra special celebratory year. For it was in 1919 exactly one hundred years ago that Thomas Doughty, the butcher and postmaster in the neighbouring village of Eastling bought the business for the princely sum £640 to provide employment for two of his sons , Stuart and Bill who had just returned home from the First World War. Today all those years later Stuart’s grand-daughter Alison manages a team of highly experienced, loyal staff (three of whom have each been there for over 40 years) who continue to cut and prepare meat in a time honoured tradition, as well as make hundreds of pounds of award winning sausages to his original recipe. Doughty’s is unusual in that it still has its own slaughterhouse, and by using animals from local farms, food miles are kept to a minimum and provenance assured. Factors that do not go unnoticed by customers who travel the length and breadth of the county to visit this tiny shop, and who for the third year in a row voted S.W Doughty the Best Butchers Shop in Kent at the ‘Taste of Kent Awards’ held in Detling earlier this year. ‘We are incredibly proud of this achievement in our 100^th anniversary year’, says Alison ‘my staff work incredibly hard to provide our customers with a friendly bespoke personal service and we are delighted to have again been rewarded in this way’. The village of Doddington is likewise equally proud of the part the Doughty family have played in the life of the village so much so that Douglas, Alison’s father has been presented with a special Community Award by the High Sheriff of Kent, Paul Barrett, for his lifelong and significant contribution to the village. The presentation took place in front of the shop and especial reference was made to his varying roles as Chairman of the Parish Council for 25 years, as trustee and committee member of the new Village Hall for 30 years and Doddington school governor for 10, all of which it was said he pursued with commitment and enthusiasm. Alison concluded ‘This has truly been an amazing few weeks, my Father is thrilled to have received this award and we as a family in turn are very grateful for the support that we have had from villagers throughout the locality that has enabled us to achieve this 100^th year milestone’ swdoughty.co.uk