J &J Graham

Brothers James and John Graham opened their grocery in 1793 — before Trafalgar, before the census — and the shop still trades under their names from the 1880 building it keeps on Penrith's Market Square, which makes it the oldest business in this guide by some distance. Alan Reading and his daughter Joanne Ashby have run it since 2012, a father-and-daughter partnership recorded plainly at Companies House, selling the county's cheeses, hams and store-cupboard seriousness across counters that predate the concept of the supermarket by a century. The food-safety inspectors called in June 2026 and rated everything very good; the 230th anniversary passed in 2023 with the shop barely pausing to notice, and two centuries of practice will do that.