There have long been claims that Levers in Oldham, or at least its predecessor, which was just down the road, was one of the first chip shops in the country. This is easily debunked, of course; the sit-in chippy in the centre of town only opened in 1991.
Where the legend has got a bit muddied is obvious - some of the very first fried potatoes in the land were plunged into hot oil in Oldham’s Tommyfield Market, to which Levers is attached. As the blue plaque on the wall outside the shop explains, ‘the first chips were fried in Oldham, around 1860, from which the origins of fish and chip shops and the fast food industries can be traced’.
Lees’ in Mossley down the road is rather more likely to hold that accolade, after Mr John Lees picked up on the frying of chips seen in Tommyfield and started his own shop on Stamford Street around 1863. A national cuisine, feeding us cheaply through world wars and economic turbulence, was born.
