J R Page & Co, Westbury Brewery
J R Page & Co, Westbury Brewery, Ashwell, Hertfordshire
Founded 1843 by Benjamin Christy and John Sale at Westbury Farm and acquired by J R Page, a Baldock maltster, in 1879.
Acquired by Wells & Winch Ltd. 1921 with 26 tied houses. The Baldock maltings were sold to Paine & Co. Ltd of St.Neots in the same year.
THE WESTBURY BREWERY, ASHWELL by Martyn Cornell
(Reproduced from the Brewery History Society Journal no. 55, February 1989)
Benjamin Christy and John Sale were neighbouring farmers, the one at the Westbury farm, and the other at Farrow's Farm. The Sales were an old Hertfordshire family - Cussans says they came from Scotland originally, and can be found in Ashwell as early as 1695. The Christys were also a big Ashwell family, and later in the 19th Century one branch ran a mineral water works in the High Street.
However, the brewery seems to have been started by Benjamin and John in 1843, for Cockett & Nash, Solicitors, record work done by carpenter Isaac Picking and bricklayer Peter Bailey at "Christy and Sale's new brewery" in Ashwell that year. Once again it was almost certainly brewing for their farms that encouraged the pair to start brewing commercially, and they are also found in directories as maltsters.
John Sale died in January 1862 at Farrow's Farm, aged 64, and his partner carried on the brewery by himself. By the time the 1866 Kelly's Directory came out, however, Benjamin Christy's son, Benjamin junior, was in charge of the business.
Benjamin Christy died in December 1867. Under his will the brewery was split between his two sons Benjamin and George, but Benjamin junior could buy George's share off him if he wanted. Cockett & Nash were called in to value the property, for Benjamin decided he would buy his brother out and carry on alone. The property evidently included just one tied house, a beerhouse in Back Street, Hitchin "in the possession of Henry Hawkes". The brewery itself, with its slate roof, brick chimney and 60 feet long, six feet deep store room, was in need of repair in places, according to the surveyor's report. Plasterwork needed replacing, as did the woodwork of the ventilator over the copper, and indeed the copper Itself. The brewery maltings "steeps 16 quarters, but will only work off 12 quarters regularly".
Other property at the brewery included a five quarter mash tun, a 2½ inch fir cooler "eight or nine years old" with sluice of five feet of copper pipe to refrigerate it, four vats of 110 barrels capacity each, and one of 76 barrels, "old and not sweet". For George's share, Benjamin junior was advised to pay a total of £2,230.
Benjamin Christy junior carried on brewing until at least 1878, the last time he appears in Kelly's Directory of Hertfordshire. Around April 1879, however, the brewery - which was mortgaged to the Delme, Radcliffe family - changed hands. It was evidently still not in very good condition, for in May the Brewers' Journal announced that David Roberts and Sons, brewing coopers and contractors, were to reconstruct the brewery "late in the occupation of B Christy". The new boss was Joshua Richmond Page, a Baldock maltster, who took over the mortgage on the brewery. Page was advertising seven different beers from the brewery in the Royston Crow newspaper by October 1879, and eight a year later. He already owned pubs in Hertfordshire from at least 1868, when he bought the White Lion, in Baldock.
Page had moved to Ashwell by 1882, living in Westbury House. He probably retired from running the business by 1898, when the concern was described by Kelly's as Page and Co. In the 1902 licensing magistrates' survey of pub holdings J R Page and Co. had 17 tied houses and one off-licence in Hertfordshire. Three of these pubs were in Ashwell, though two, the Chaffcutters and the Two Brewers, were closed down by the licensing magistrates in 1915 as part of the annual purge on "unwanted" pubs and beerhouses. Page and Co. had five tied houses in Baldock, including the peculiarly named Pretty Lamp, and they were leasing pubs as far away as Cambridge. Joshua Richmond Page died in November 1914, and the business passed to his son Joshua, who was already running it from Westbury House.
By 1921 Page's was one of 18 surviving breweries in Hertfordshire. But in the prevailing economic slump the owners clearly decided to get out. The surviving pubs, seven freehold and 18 leasehold, plus the off-licence at Mangrove Green, near Luton, were sold to Wells and Winch of Biggleswade for £9,730. The brewery buildings themselves were put up for sale in June 1921. The sale catalogue described 25 yard long underground cellars, with room for 500 barrels, stabling for six horses, and a cooperage as well. The former maltings, bought for the village of Ashwell in 1922 for £450, is now the village hall. The brewery itself has now been demolished, but Westbury Cottage has an unusual multi-paned window in its west end, which came from the brewery buildings. Page's name lives on, however. About the same time as the brewery was sold, the maltings in Baldock were also disposed of, to Paine's of St Neots. Still under the name of J R Page and Co, the site on the very edge of Baldock is one of only four maltings still operating in Hertfordshire.