E J Wickham, Mill Bridge Brewery
E J Wickham, Mill Bridge Brewery, 7 Mill Bridge, Hertford, Hertfordshire
Founded in about 1829 when Edward Wickham bought John Ireland's brewery. Edward's son, Edward J Wickham was the brother of William Wickham of the Ware Brewery.
Acquired by Wells & Winch Ltd of Biggleswade in April 1938 with 7 tied houses. The brewery was closed, and was destroyed by a flying bomb in 1944.
THE MILLBRIDGE BREWERY, HERTFORD by Martyn Cornell
(Reproduced from the Brewery History Society Journal no. 55, February 1989)
The Ireland family, founders of the Newsells Lane Brewery, Hertford, had moved their brewing activities by 1829 to premises on Mill Bridge. John W Ireland, brewer, Mill Bridge made it into the 1829 trade directory. That same year, however, the brewery was bought by Edward Wickham. (When the brewery was rebuilt after Edward's death tiles were put up on the outside which claimed the brewery had been founded in 1828. Perhaps this was the date the Irelands started it). Edward appears in the 1832 trade directory as a brewer at Mill Bridge, by which time Peter McMullen has started his brewery right opposite. Edward's brewery had its own tap for on sales alongside the premises, and Wickham is regularly listed as a beer retailer as well as a brewer. But even in 1905 the tap had only a six-day beerhouse licence, and it bore no signboard.
In 1874 Edward, then 81, passed the business to his son Edward J Wickham. From that time the brewery was known as E J Wickham, the name it kept until it closed 64 years later.
Edward Wickham senior died in May 1880, aged 87. Not quite two years later, in January 1882 the Brewers' Journal revealed that Wickham's were having a new brewery built at Mill Bridge, "from the designs of Messrs Davison, Inskiff and Mackenzie of Leadenhall Street, London". By September building work was completed, the brewery "having been enlarged and entirely rebuilt".
Edward senior's other son, William Wickham, ran a brewery himself just down the road in Ware, which he had started in the mid-1860s. However, the two brothers had made an agreement not to try to poach business on each other's patches. When William sold his brewery in 1899, Edward J inserted an advertisement into the Herts Mercury saying that "the arrangement entered into with his brother 30 years ago is now terminated upon (William's) retirement". Consequently, said Edward, he was now able to accept orders from Ware and the surrounding area.
The 1902 licensing magistrates survey showed E J Wickham supplying just four tied houses apart from the brewery tap, and only two with full licences. One was the Cross Keys, Fore Street, Hertford, which Wickham leased off McMullens. Another was the Black Horse (then called the Old Black Horse to mark it off from another pub with the same name elsewhere in the town) in West Street, Hertford. The two beerhouses were the Cranbourne Arms, Hertford, leased off the Marquess of Salisbury, and the Woodman at Chapmore End.
Later the brewery acquired three more tied houses: the Duncombe Arms in Hertford from Pryor Reid in 1911; William Wickham's old Brewery Tap in Ware High Street; and the Railway Tap or Railway Tavern, Wareside. It also supplied free houses, and one was the first licensed premises to be built in the new Welwyn Garden City, the Cherry Tree.
A fire broke out in the hay loft at Wickham's brewery in June 1915, but fortunately it was contained by the town fire brigade. The brewery also survived the widening of Mill Bridge in the 1920s, which saw the demolition of McMullen's old brewery premises across the way. A photograph from this period shows the brewery with an imposing-looking mock stone block front, and the legend "Established 1828" across the top.
In 1938, however, 110 years after the founding, Wickham's was bought by Wells and Winch of Biggleswade, the Bedfordshire firm's third Hertfordshire acquisition. The Mill Bridge Brewery was closed, and early in 1939 it became the headquarters of the Hertford Borough air raid precautions department. During most of the Second World War it was thus HQ for Hertford's ARP unit. However, in July 1944 a flying bomb fell in the mill race nearby, the explosion completely wrecking the brewery tap and damaging the brewery itself. Now all that remains is the old maltings, at right angles to the road, used as a store by an antiques shop, while the brewery site itself in 1984 was open ground.