A History of the Swan, Alcester

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The Swan Hotel, Alcester, and Holder's Brewery by Ian Greig

This article first appeared in the November 2016 issue of Local Past, the journal of the Alcester and District Local History Society (ADLHS), and is written by the editor of the journal. The only differences are the addition of a reference (which had been omitted in error), an additional note, and minor changes for re-formatting it into single-column layout.

Quite a lot is known about the Swan Hotel, and its proprietors and licensees. It is described in the ADLHS Occasional Papers about Alcester's hotels and public houses (Nos. 2a and the updated version 25), and in Local Past (Spring 1993, June 2008). It was owned by John Stephens in 1843 when it is mentioned in his will, with William Ivens as the lessee. From then on, whilst there is no difficulty about tracing the licensees, the ownership does not appear to be mentioned anywhere. All I knew is that it was a Mitchells & Butlers Ltd (M&B) tied house until fairly recently (about 10 years ago?), when it was sold off to one of the new pub-owning companies.

I have had the occasional drink there since the early 1970s. I've always liked the etched glass door to the former telephone booth, just to the right of the main stairs as you go up them, which features a shield with the letters 'HLd' within it, but until recently I have never known what that stood for. It seemed fairly obvious that the letters stood for a company called H***** Ltd., and on the assumption that because it was on a phone booth it might have been the name of one of the early telephone companies I spent some time looking at the telephonic history of Alcester. I got nowhere, until I came across the website of the Brewery History Society (www.breweryhistory.com).

The 'Defunct' breweries section resolved the mystery, as there were several photos of the same shield on different pubs, as well as one of the door in The Swan taken by Alcester's own John Ross. It stands for Holder's Brewery Ltd of Nova Scotia Street, Birmingham, also known as Holder's Midland Brewery, but not to be confused with various other 'Midland Brewery' concerns that existed at the time. It was set up in 1872 by J.C. (later Sir John) Holder, taken over by Mitchells & Butlers Ltd in 1919 and closed by them in 19231. So when, I wondered, did Holder's acquire it? As far as I can see, it was 1910.

The surviving Holder Ltd's records are held by Sandwell Archives in Smethwick (ref. BS MB/1/5/1-5), and I headed to the Black County on the same day as my Birmingham Library trip to research Thomas Averill (see this issue, page 16). There are three leather-bound account books and a book of Directors' Statements for 1912-1919 (essentially the Balance Sheets for each year).

In the annual Balance Sheets, The Swan is listed under 'Freehold Properties'. I worked my way back from 1919 hoping to find the first entry, which would have told me when they bought it – but no luck as it was in all of them, and the pre-1912 book is not in the archive.

However, there is a page for the Swan Hotel, Alcester in the Impersonal Ledger for 1908-1919. The first entries are for 1910, and on 7th Feb there is 'Clarke & Co. bal[ance] purchase £1,575', and on 2nd June payments to Clarke's – presumably a firm of solicitors – for conveyance (£22/10/-), Stamp [duty] (£8/15/6) and Sundries (£1/17/4).

I had hoped that the Alcester Chronicle would have mentioned this, or at least carried an 'Under New Ownership' advertisement, but I went through the whole year's issues in Alcester Library and couldn't see anything.

Sir John was quite an interesting character. There is a good article titled People and Places around Moor Green, Moseley by Janet Berry and Nina Caddick on the Moseley Society's website (http://moseleysociety.org.uk), which includes quite a lot about him. He lived in a large house called Pitmaston in Moseley, named after his wife's family home in Worcester, in the grounds of which he built a 10¼" gauge miniature railway. He was a noted philanthropist, making substantial donations to Birmingham General Hospital, the Museum and Art Gallery and the University.

As you might expect from this, the brewery also appears to have been concerned to provide social and cultural activities, such as a band, for its staff. It sometimes even employed staff on the basis of the contribution they could make, to the extent of advertising nationally. On 18th November 1898 the South Wales Echo included the following advertisement:

Man wanted as Brewery Labourer; permanent situation, wages commence 22s; applicant must be good trombone player. [apply] Bandmaster, Holder's Brewery, Birmingham.

It also had a cricket team. The Cricket Archive (www.cricketarchive.com) has the scorecard from a match between Holder's Brewery and Hall Green Second XI, played on 21st July 1900 at Moor Green Lane, Moseley, just down the road from Pitmaston House; I think this was what later became The Reddings, home to Moseley Rugby Club. The brewery won by 37 runs, H.C. Holder took 4 wickets and scored 7 runs; J.A. Holder made 17 and A.E. Holder 15 (the highest scores, so it wasn't entirely nepotism to have three Holders in the team!)

Sir John died in 1923 – which is of course the year that Mitchells & Butlers Ltd closed his old brewery. I wonder whether he had stipulated that it be kept open during his lifetime, when it was sold to Mitchells & Butlers Ltd? If so, they certainly didn't waste any time in doing the deed.

Hopefully, The Swan will keep its Holder's window for a good few years yet. It has recently been refurbished to include The Rustic Kitchen restaurant, and seems to be doing quite well. I understand that the bedrooms are also due to be refurbished. It had been rather down-at-heel for quite a long time, and it is good to see that it might once again be returning to its old position as the top hotel in town.

Acknowledgements

  • Thanks to: Rory Powell at Sandwell Archives for his help when I visited; Jeff Sechiari and Steve Peck of the Brewery History Society for their help.

Reference

1. Details of the opening and subsequent demise of Holder's are taken from the Sandwell Archives online catalogue: http://blackcountryhistory.org/collections/getrecord/GB146_BS-MB_1_5/

Additional Note

Since this article was writtenI have obtained a copy of Joseph McKenna's Birmingham Breweries (Brewin Books, 2005). This gives 1869-70 as the date when Holder's Midland Brewery was established in Nova Scotia Street, and also notes that it was Henry Holder who was responsible for setting it up, not his son John who took over in 1875. I had seen these dates on a few internet sites and forums, but I hadn't then seen McKenna and took the Archive catalogue as probably more authoritative. I don't know which is correct. Clearly a bit more research is required, unless someone has definitive information. Unfortunately McKenna's book doesn't give his sources.

McKenna also states that the original Holder's Brewery was set up by Henry in 1859 to serve his pub, the Rodney Inn in Coleshill Street, and the adjacent Holder's Concert Hall which he also owned. He then sold it to Gardner & Co. before opening the Midland Brewery in Nova Scotia Street. Gardner's operated the original brewery from 1864-5, but it only lasted a short time.