The Brewing Industry: Archive Report | PDF - English Heritage

Foreword
The Brewery History Society (BHS) was founded in 1972 to promote research into all aspects of
the brewing industry, to encourage the interchange of information about breweries and brewing,
and to collect photographic and other archive information about brewery history. The Society
publishes a Newsletter and a quarterly journal Brewery History, which first appeared in 1972. It
has also published a national directory and a series of county-wide surveys of historic breweries;
the Society’s archive is held by Birmingham Central Library. Further details of BHS activities may
be found at .
The ongoing threat to the historic fabric of the English brewing industry was discussed at
the conference From Grain to Glass, organised jointly by English Heritage (EH), the BHS and the
Association for Industrial Archaeology (AIA), which took place at Swindon on 13 June 2003; the
joint BHS and Victorian Society study day From Hop to Hostelry: the brewing and licensed trades 1837
-1914 (Young’s Ram Brewery, Wandsworth, 25 February 2006); and during the AIA Ironbridge
Working Weekend (Coalbrookdale, 29 April 2006). Following this EH agreed to support a project
on ‘The Brewing Industry’, which was carried out between July 2007 and September 2009. Its
aims were to provide up to date information on all pre-1940 operating breweries, to compile a
comprehensive list of historic brewery buildings (the computerised BHS Breweries Database), to
consider the future of the industry’s archives, and to undertake a national assessment on the
industry, in the form of a Strategy for the Historic Industrial Environment report (SHIER).
Acknowledgements
The project steering committee comprised Jeff Sechiari (BHS Chair), Ray Anderson (BHS
President), and BHS committee members Ken Smith and Mike Bone. The project researcher was
Lynn Pearson, author and BHS member. Much of the groundwork was carried out by BHS
members, who contributed to a survey of England’s remaining brewery buildings. They included:
John Arguile, David Baker, Paul Bayley, Mike Brown, Des Clarke, Neil Clarke, David Cox, Tony
Crosby, George Crutcher, Geoff Dye, Philip Eley, Ray Farleigh, Robert Flood, Simon Gispert,
Jenny Greenhalgh, John Hodges, Tim Holt, Peter Holtham, Ian Hornsey, Bob Inman, Malcolm
James, John Janaway, Ray Kirby, Chris Marchbanks, Mary Miles, Peter Moynihan, Ken Page, Ian
Peaty, Steve Peck, Pat Saunders, Mark Steeds, D. J. Taylor, Alan Walker, Jeffrey Waller, Allan
Whitaker and John Williamson. The steering committee and Lynn Pearson are very grateful to all
those who took part in the survey.
We are also grateful to others who assisted with the project, including Heloise Brown
(Victorian Society), Tony Calladine, Bruce Hedge (AIA), Sue Hudson, Malcolm C. James (who
kindly allowed us to see a copy of his thesis on the brewery buildings of Burton upon Trent),
Joseph Mirwitch, Ann Morris, Richard Oxborrow, Amber Patrick, Kingsley Rickard, Sheila Stones
and Ken Thomas (Courage Archive). We are also grateful for the support of the Association for
Industrial Archaeology. In addition, we are particularly grateful to Norman Barber, former BHS
Archivist, without whose earlier research our task would have been impossible.
Finally we should like to thank English Heritage for offering us the opportunity to carry out
this project. Keith Falconer, EH Head of Industrial Archaeology, provided constant support and
enthusiasm for the idea of the brewery industry project. Peter Smith, our EH Project Officer,
ensured that we kept on course, while Gareth Watkins, Barney Sloane and Tim Cromack helped
considerably in the project’s early stages.
Please note that all photographs are by members of the Brewery History Society unless
otherwise stated. LBS = Listed Buildings System.