Our Story
Our Story
Award Winnning Shortbread From The New Forest National Park
New Forest Shortbread made by Tracy Thew at Burley Rails Cottage
Tracy Thew has made shortbread for family and friends for more than 50 years and New Forest Shortbread has been delighting visitors to the New Forest National Park since 2015. With years of experience, our small female founded team of bakers is dedicated to the fine art of shortbread baking. What began as a personal pursuit has blossomed into a thriving local business where lovingly handcrafted batches of dough are baked and packed into boxes of award winning flavoured shortbread.
delicious
Artisan Shortbread
Our distinctive and customary approach to production ensures an intentional and wonderful array of shapes and colours, providing an exclusive artisan experience with every bite. To keep the homemade taste and texture, each batch of Tracy's dough is very slightly different in weight and mixing time, so the shortbread vary enough to give a variety of shape and colour once baked.
Handmade & A Passion For The New Forest
Tracy provides local holiday cottages with packets of shortbread and has expanded into a large number of local retail outlets as well as selling on-line where she offers an extensive range of exciting flavours.
The shortbread is delicious and makes a very special purchase.
TRADE SALES
Working With Retailers
Tracy supplies a full range of All Butter Shortbread to retail stores, visitor attractions and hotels across the National Park and recently featured in New Forest Collection's fifth episode of their 'Forest to Fork' series.
Burley Rails Cottage is where New Forest Shortbread has been made since 2011.
The cottage was built in 1811 as a woodman’s cottage.
The woodman was responsible for the fencing to keep the Commoners animals out of the tree-growing nurseries called Inclosures or Enclosures.
There are many cottages of the same design within the New Forest, most remain Crown properties and are occupied by people who have chosen to live and work in the forest such as Keepers, Agisters, Forestry workers and Crown employees. Sometimes these jobs are a lifestyle choice as these people may also be the Commoners who own the livestock, horses, cattle and pigs; de-pastured on the open forest.
These Crown cottages, being tenanted, have, apart from essential additions, remained the same for hundreds of years. Burley Rails was sold out of the then Forestry Commission and has been privately owned since the 1970’s.
New Forest Inspired Artwork
Packaging Joy
We package our artisan shortbread in boxes featuring beautiful illustrations by local artists and stories about our wonderful New Forest National Park. We love to share little nuggets of local information and conveying details about this special place to enhance readers' understanding of this special region; changing our stories annually to cover subjects of interest.
Tracy leads her team of talented local staff
Working together to carefully create delicious shortbread that tastes good and melts in the mouth, deeply committed to our homegrown brand. Set deep in the heart of the New Forest National Park, we ensure a conscious concern for the food we produce, the welfare of our fellow team members, our working environment and the important relationships with our local suppliers, businesses and friends.
