John Hunt was a Victorian engineer in Bolton making single cylinder producer gas engines which were sold around the world until eventually morphing the company into pie-making machines, the chief of which was the Little Champion first appearing in the early 1920s.
 
Dave Knowlson happened on three old pie blockers in what he described as a private reclamation yard in Holly Park Mills, Calverley, Leeds which the local paper described as a life-changing encounter.
 
“The guy made gates and railings and had obviously been collecting stuff for years. The theee machines were out in the yard, I bought the best of the bunch. The machine is an old John Hunt Pie Blocker. They still make them in Bolton Lancashire. Been going years,” pieman Dave told Salvo.
 
He lovingly restored the robustly-made Little Champion and set about learning to make pies and now his shop, Dave’s Pies & Ale is the toast of the trendy quarter of Leeds.