Maltsters and Brewers in Wellington

From Brewery History Society Wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
The remains of the maltings in Wellington

Maltsters and Brewers in Wellington over the years by John Howard

Brewing would have taken place in Wellington from its earliest days, and in the 14th Century we find the first records of an ale taster being appointed by the Court Leet. The ale taster was responsible for ensuring the quality of beer being sold, usually by women known as ‘ale wives’ or brewsters, who in the Middle Ages would hang a broom from the front of their house to signify that their beer was ready and for sale. In time, the brooms became more distinctive signs – the sign of The Crown, The Bell, The White Lion etc. – and so it was that the nation’s weird and wonderful pub names came into being.

Malt was milled in Wellington in 1601 and malt mills were mentioned in 1663 and 1759. There were fifteen maltsters in Wellington in 1828. Brewing itself was mostly done on a domestic scale in this period, as shown by the inventories of Wellington residents in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. In over a quarter of the East Shropshire probate inventories studied by Trinder and Cox, brewing equipment was present. Some 17th- and 18th-century public houses seem to have brewed for wholesale, however, and in 1771 John Espley gave his occupation as brewer.

Things changed dramatically in the 19th Century as large brewing concerns began to spring up around the town, starting with the Shropshire Brewery, Wellington founded by Richard Taylor in 1851. In the 1870s it passed to Anslow & Wackrill (later J. G. Wackrill). The premises were in Watling Street, opposite the Old Hall.

In 1877 Edwin Pitchford & Co. opened the Union Brewery Co. Ltd in the former workhouse on Walker Street (later part of Wellington Library and now cottages). The Union Brewery Co. belonged to Benjamin Garbett by 1891 and remained in business until 1920. The Red Lion Brewery Co. opened premises in New Church Road in 1905 and lasted until 1924.

Wellington’s best-known and longest-lived brewery was The Wrekin Brewery Co. Ltd, established by Thomas Taylor in Market Street in 1870. It initially occupied premises opposite the Market Hall before moving down the street to new premises opposite The Pheasant pub. The original buildings went on to house Charles Ensor’s Wrekin Mineral Water Works – the manufacture of soft drinks being another string to the town’s bow in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Back at The Wrekin Brewery Co. Ltd, meanwhile, business was booming. Bought by O.D. Murphy in 1921, it grew its portfolio to 201 houses across the county and beyond by 1966. Acquired that year by Greenall Whitley & Co. Ltd, production ceased at the brewery in 1969 and it was demolished in 1975.

In 2014 brewing returned to Wellington when Dave Goldingay of the Ironbridge Brewery Ltd who hoped to open the water borehole used by the Wrekin Brewery Co. Ltd, began brewing at The Pheasant – opposite the old Wrekin Brewery site. The Pheasant premises lease transferred to Jim Preston from the Rowton Brewery in 2017.