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Summary

Grade II listed 18th and 19th century buildings once part of Adnam's Brewery (previously Gale's Speenhamland Brewery)

Associated Legal Designations or Protected Status

• Listed Building (II) 1220556: OUTBUILDING AT REAR OF NO 24
• Conservation Area: Newbury Town Centre

Monument Type(s):

• BREWERY (18th century to Late 19th century - 1768 AD to 1900 AD?)

Full Description

The Old Brewery, on the north side of the Broadway in Speenhamland, was listed in 1983. The listed building description notes, 'Late 18th century (after 1768) and 19th century ranges, mostly brick exterior walls with tile-hung north gable end and wood louvers to south end of 3-storey range; weather-boarding to north gable end of 2-storey range….Formerly part of Adnam's Brewery (c1802-1930), previously Gale's Speenhamland Brewery. Included as the earliest and sole surviving brewery buildings in Newbury' <1>. In 2002, the building was put on a heritage pressure group's database as being at risk, and in need of repair and reuse <3>.

A description was made of the features inside the brewery in 1999 <5>: a wooden hopper for the barley, a brick construction which would have held the copper, beams with recipes painted on them and louvre windows for cooling were all in existence then. Extensive vaulted brick cellars remain under the building.

Personal communication from the owner to Assistant Curator Paul Cannon 12/02/2003 following a visit to collect bottle crates from the dilapidated brewery for the museum was that the building has been photographed by English Heritage; however, it is not clear where these photographs are located.

The two adjoining listed buildings were part of a larger complex arranged around a yard, including a malthouse which existed in 1971 <6>. In 2005 Oxford Archaeology was commissioned to record the structures prior to their conversion to offices <7>; however by this time the internal floors and all the principal features relating to the buildings' former use had been removed, and only a shell remained. This meant that it was difficult to gain a full understanding of the historic form and function of the brewery.

Research for the building recording located a plan of the brewery within a set of title deeds of 1896 belonging to Mr F M Adnams <8>. On the plan the two ranges were labelled as 'Office and Brewery', north of a Bottle house. The malthouse was to the northwest across an open yard, with a set of stables and a warehouse to the south, and the owner's house (Mr J Adnams) south of this. There were two gardens to the north of the yard. The earliest map of Newbury <9> does not appear to show the brewery ranges, although they might be schematically represented on the 1780 enclosure map <10>.

The survey interpreted the larger of the two surviving buildings as early 19th century, probably constructed when the brewery was established in the first decade of the century. Externally its main features are wooden louvres which would have been opened to allow ventilation into the upper floor, probably where the mash tuns were housed. The northerly two storey range may have been built in the late 18th century against an east-west structure shown on Willis' map <9> which was later demolished to allow for the insertion of the three storey range. The main internal surviving feature in the larger range was the brick stack which had a furnace with firebox at second floor. The copper would have probably sat on top of this, although it was unusual for it to be so high, as gravity would normally be used to carry liquid from the mash tuns down to the coppers. It seemed that at least part of the second floor of the three storey block was used for cooling liquids from the copper and possibly for drying other materials. At ground floor level there was a cast iron bearing box for a power shaft which would have passed through the wall into the two storey range; on the other side of the wall was a circular recess for a belt wheel. It is likely that this shaft would have been powered by a small engine and meant principally for transferring sacks between floors using a hoist. There were no relevant fixtures or fittings remaining inside the two storey range, although the listed building description mentioned a hopper on the first floor.

Other features recorded were a series of numbers written on the tie beams in the roof stating '1B Add 3 tenths', '2 B deduct 4 tenths' and '3 B deduct 3 tenths' presumably relating to quantities of ingredients used during the brewing process. There was also a vaulted cellar below the brewery (with separate access) that would have been used for storage.

The Oxford Archaeology report concluded that conversion should ensure the survival of this attractive pair of structures, providing one of the few reminders of the brewing industry in Newbury.

The Museum of English Rural Life holds a croze plane, used to shape barrel staves, from the brewery <14>.

Sources and further reading

Related Monuments

Associated Excavations and Fieldwork

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