Patrick Bruce Junor

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An advert from 1870
Possible the remains of Junor's brewery?
The Tower, Tudhoe Grange

Patrick Bruce Junor, Tower Brewery, Tudhoe Grange, Durham.

Merged into North Eastern Breweries Ltd 1896 with c.25 houses, closed 1902.


Frank Nicholson writes:-

The brewery, leased by George H Ogleby from the Salvin Estate, was completed in 1871, but by 1877 Ogleby had retired and the remaining 95 years of the brewery lease offered for sale. (The premises covered 2,888 square yards, contained five quarter plant in a " large and substantial brewing house", malt store, tun room, wash-house, store room, engine room, pumping room, boiling room, cooling room, malt mill and " all other conveniences") The brewery closed when its water source became contaminated but Patrick Bruce Junor moved from the West End Brewery, Durham, to re-open the brewery c1880, when it was referred to as the Tudhoe Grange Brewery. The business, with 25 licensed houses, became part of North Eastern Breweries Ltd in 1896 and by 1902 they had closed the Tower Brewery and were prepared to receive offers for its letting. (Junor died in 1904, aged 54, leaving an estate of £22,390.)"

North Eastern Breweries Ltd had their head office at the Wear Brewery, Westbourne Road, Sunderland. They merged with Vaux Breweries Ltd, Sunderland in 1926 to form Associated Breweries Ltd, The Brewery, Castle Street, Sunderland; subsequently Vaux and Associated Breweries Ltd; latterly Vaux Breweries Ltd, which was the second largest independent brewery group in the UK when it was closed down by city interests in 1999.

The Tower Brewery in Tudhoe Grange that neighbours Spennymoor was built in 1864 by a George Ogleby although some sources put its starting date as 1871. The water for the brewing was taken from a spring in the dene behind Wood Vue, but the water soon became so polluted that the wells were condemned by the local authority and the brewery was forced to close for several years. In the mid-1880’s it was bought by Patrick Bruce Junor who had moved down from Scotland in 1873 where he had been a noted rugby player, selected once to play for his country, but, for some reason, unable to do so and not selected again. It formed part of the amalgamation of companies that comprised the Sunderland-headquartered North Eastern Breweries Ltd formed in 1896 which, in turn, merged with C Vaux & Sons in 1927 to form what became Vaux Breweries Ltd.

The brewery closed in 1901 although it remained in use as a depot, servicing the pubs that had previously belonged to it in the Spennymoor area, until sometime after the Great War. The local football team, Spennymoor AFC, still plays on Brewery Field.

Both Mr Junor and his wife, Anne, died in their early ‘50’s in 1902 and are buried in Spennymoor churchyard. Funnily enough I did some research on their family a little time ago and discovered that their children, two daughters and a son, moved out of the area shortly after their parents died. Their son, also called Patrick Bruce, emigrated to either Kenya or Uganda before joining the East Africa Regiment at the start of the War, specifically the East Africa Maxims.

I discovered on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission site that he died in the attack on Bukoba, on the western edge of Lake Victoria, on 23rd June 1915 and, after initial burial there, was re-buried in the Commonwealth War Graves site outside Dar es Salaam where his grave remains today.

I’m afraid I have no record of the beers brewed there, but many of the town’s pubs, that in recent years bore the Vaux name, would once have belonged to Junor’s.