The Constables of Arundel & Littlehampton

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THE CONSTABLES OF ARUNDEL & LITTLEHAMPTON by Pat Saunders

Constable & Sons Ltd

This is the second in a series of articles covering the intertwined brewing families of the Hentys and the Constables

The Constable Family

As far back as the mid-18th century there is mention of the Constable family at Arundel. In 1748, Thomas Constable bought a property known as The Almhouse in Old Market Street, Arundel, from Francis Eliot. At that time, Thomas was described as a carpenter.

At the time of his death about 1778 he was described as a timber merchant. The probate of his will was granted to his wife Catherine, as she was named sole executor. They had four surviving children, George, Thomas, James and a married daughter Catherine, wife of Edward Penfold of Arundel. Apart from the above mentioned Old Market Street property, the other property in Thomas Constable’s estate was the family residence, Three House Place, Tarrant Street, Arundel. His wife Catherine was left a life interest in both these properties.

After Catherine Constable’s death in about 1782, the ownership of The Almhouse passed to George (1) and Thomas (2) Constable. With the other property, Three House Place, while Catherine had been alive, her kinsfolk Emlyn, Jane and Mary Sefton were permitted to share it. Afterwards George (1), Thomas (2) and James Constable became tenants in common of Three House Place. In addition James was bequeathed £100, and Catherine £5.

George (1) and Thomas (2) Constable were both described as carpenters resident in Arundel, whilst their brother James, moved away to Leominster. In 1771, there is mention of George acting as agent for John Guile (an executor of William Guile’s will), receiving £750 from Richard Coote for a half capital share of the Old Brewery, Tarrant Street, Arundel. Then in connection with this same property, in 1780, both George (1) and Thomas (2) were named as undertennants in occupation of the Storehouse & Coal Yard along with Thomas Coote. At the same time, Edward Puttock was the tenant of the Brewhouse, Vaults and Coal Pen.

In September 1782, George (1) applied for and was granted authority to complete discharging his father’s will, since Catherine Constable had died before finishing the task. At the same time, 1782, George (1), Thomas (2) and James Constable sold the Old Market Street property to George Duke of Leominster, a farmer, for £500. This property was bought back by George Constable, from George Duke for £640 in August 1799.

In 1789, George (1) and Thomas (2), still described as carpenters, sold Three House Place, Tarrant Street, to George Puttock, a brewer of Arundel. About this time it is noted that Thomas (2) had a wife called Mary. At the time of Thomas (2) Constable’s death circa 1845, two surviving children are named in his will, George (2) and an unmarried daughter Clarissa Elizabeth.

From the early part of the 19th century (probably from 1807 until about 1840) it appears that Thomas (2) was in co-partnership with George and Edward Bowden Puttock. The later two being the sons of Edward Puttock, brewer at the Old Brewery, Tarrant Street, Arundel. There are a number of business dealings in which Thomas (2) is described as a brewer, although these deals are not directly involved with brewing. For instance Thomas and the Puttock brothers loaned £200 to John Boxold, with repayment on a 25 year mortgage. John Boxold was a publican in Arundel and used the money to purchase a piece of land from Charles Howard, Duke of Norfolk.

It would appear that the Constable family maintained their connections with the family of Richard Coote. There are some business dealings in which George (2), described as a brewer of Arundel, is mentioned. One particular instance being the mortgages raised on a pair of farms in Middleton, known as the Middleton and Action Farms. These consisted of about 800 acres in total and were finally sold in 1874 to F.Dixon Hartland, after the death of Richard Coote in 1873, (aged 75).

In May 1815, George (2) was married by license in Middleton Parish Church, to Frances Coote. Both he and Frances were aged 21 at the time of their marriage. George (2) is described as a brewer, and had been resident in Arundel for several years. Frances Coote had only been resident in Middleton a few months before the marriage, but it is not known where she had lived prior to that. George (2) together with Thomas (2) were required to pay £500 for the marriage settlement.

When Thomas (2) Constable died in 1845, his will named his son, George (2), and his grandson George Sefton Constable as executors. This will does not give many details of his properties or the extent of his wealth. However, it did state that Clarissa Elizabeth was to receive a house and two adjoining tenanted dwellings, along with household effects and furniture. She was also to receive a legacy of £130 a year for the rest of her life. The residue of the estate was left to George (2). In 1849, George (2) received a reminder to pay this legacy, from the Legacy Duty Department.

George (2), it seems did amass some of his own wealth. For in addition to his business dealings with Richard Coote, he acted as trustee for the estate of Mrs.Elizabeth Hopkins, during the 1840s. Mrs.Hopkins was a widow, who had two adopted children, Mary Ann Norris Macken and William Green. She had formerly lived in Arundel, but had moved to Clapham. She also held property in Chichester, in particular three dwelling houses in St.Pancras. She eventually remarried, to Maurice Budd, although there was no issue. She then died on 8th April 1848. In December 1848, George (2) agreed to sell the St.Pancras properties to John Budden for £450.

In a deed of lease and release, dated 10th & 11th October 1820, George (2) Constable is mentioned as one party in a conveyance for a piece of land known as Drewitts Marsh, north of the River Arun. Also mentioned is George Puttock, brewer of Arundel. George (2) paid £700 for this land, which was about 16 acres in area.

It is also known that in February 1831, Thomas (2) Constable was named executor & trustee in the will of Charles Cook, a bootmaker. Charles Cook owned two dwelling houses in Tarrant Street, which in 1832 were bought by Edward Bowden Puttock and Richard Wilkins. In May 1832, Thomas Constable signed a deed of disclaimer in favour of Charles’ widow Mary Cook and their children Mary Smart and Charles John Cook.

James Constable, the builder, acted as trustee in a deed made between Edward Puttock and his sons George and Edward Bowden Puttock in 1805. The two brothers paid £1,000 to their father for the Old Brewery, Arundel. In 1832 this brewery was completely rebuilt by Edward Bowden Puttock with Robert Wilkins (Steward to the Duke of Norfolk).

The Constable family during the 19th century operated Arundel’s other brewery, the Swallow Brewery, which dated back to the 18th century. At Littlehampton, brewing was started up by John Constable. He had taken over the Anchor Brewery in the High Street, from James Corfe, who had established it in 1816 on the site of Newports school. Thomas Constable continued to run the Littlehampton Brewery until his death in 1883. He lived in a house adjoining the Brewery. Both the Swallow and Anchor Breweries came under the control of George Sefton Constable.

Of George Sefton’s three sons, Archibald took over the business until his own death in 1927. He lived in the lodge a little further along the High Street. After the amalgamation with the Westgate Brewery, he became one of the directors. He moved to Chichester, although he maintained links with Littlehampton. He had founded the town’s Cricket Club. He served on the Urban District Council, having first been elected in 1906.

Lionel Leslie was the third son of George Sefton, and also became a director of Henty & Constable, at Westgate. His home was Coates House at Fittleworth. He was keen on hunting and had been a magistrate for 25 years. Lionel died in February 1931 from pneumonia after a month’s illness.

Henty & Constable (Brewers) Ltd

Both the Anchor Brewery, Littlehampton, and the Swallow Brewery, Arundel, had been incorporated in 1904, but after the amalgamation in 1921 they both ceased brewing. The Anchor Brewery in Littlehampton was turned over to the manufacture of mineral waters. It had its own well, which was some 319 ft deep. The boiler house that fronted onto the High Street was gutted and converted into a shop, which became solely an off-license. At a later date (c.1937) the old Anchor Brewery site was taken over by Cantrell & Cockerall. The Swallow Brewery at Arundel, became the new company’s wine and spirit department, with spirits being ‘broken down’ and bottled, and wines being bottled and matured.

By 1926, the firm was considered to be one of Chichester’s biggest business. A reporter was sent along to the brewery by the Chichester Observer. His description of a tour through the brewery was published in January of that year;

“We began the tour by inspecting the massive sweating drum of a capacity of 27 quarters, which was installed by Messrs.R.Boby & Sons, of Bury St.Edmunds. Into this the barley is poured when it comes fresh from the farmers. After eight hours in the drum, the barley is screened in order to remove half corns and small stones, and is later transferred to a large stone cistern, which we duly visited. Here the barley is steeped for 60 hours, in order that germination may begin.

From the cistern we crossed floors coated with a thick carpet of barley that resembled, at a distance, yellow snow, and crunched under foot with the same sensation as the cold clammy flux that coated the yards outside. These were the malting floors, on which the barley remains 12 days so that it may fully germinate, or, in other words, sprout at the end thus forming a rootlet.

Next we came to the anthracite-heated malt kilns, on which the barley is loaded and left for four days at a temperature that rises until they are thoroughly cured.

Then we inspected large air-tight bins, in which the barley from which the rootlets have dropped off is kept for a time to ensure its being perfectly free from moisture. It is now malt. The malting process can only be carried on from October to April, owing to climatic conditions. The various residues such as malt culms, kiln dust and barley screens are of some commercial value. The culms are used for cattle feed, the dust for the grass of golf links and cricket grounds, and the screens as a poultry food.

Passing into other machine rooms, we saw how the malt is directed into a hopper and from thence into the malt mill, where it is crushed by rollers each fitted with magnets to extract any tiny pieces of metal that might have found their way into the malt.

Next we traced the passage of the malt from elevators to the gist case at the top of the brewery, and from this to the mash tun, a great circular vessel fitted with revolving sparge arms, which spray hot water on to the malt in much the same way as tea is made, the coloured liquid thus created escaping through the perforated gun metal bottom of the tun into pipes which transmit it to an open fire copper, where it has now reached the stage known as wort. The residue of wet grains is sold to farmers as a feeding stuff for milch cows.

To the wort is added a certain percentage of dried hops, and the whole is boiled for two hours.

After the boiling, the wort is turned into what is known as a hop back, a vessel with a false slotted bottom, which permits of the wort being pumped up into a cooler at the top of the brewery, leaving the hops from which the goodness has been extracted on the bottom of the ‘back’. These spent hops are a useful garden manure by product.

The wort passes from the cooler apparatus, which embodies a piping frame, to two vertical refrigerators, through which cold water circulates and so into wooded copper-lined vessels for the fermentation. These giant cup-shaped containers (each capable of holding 200 barrels) seemed to me with their thick coating of white froth to be an appropriate representation of the pint pot of a pantomine giant.

The fermenting vessels, it was explained, are fitted with atemperators or metal tubes passing around the inside of the vessel and fitted with circulating cold water to regulate the heat of the wort.

The wort is now ‘pitched’ with that curious substance known as yeast. The yeast, bye the bye, has to be stored under careful hygienic conditions in a specially fitted chamber. It is said to be an excellent antidote against skin troubles if taken in small doses regularly. I tasted a little, but did not exactly relish the sharply bitter flavour.

The yeast starts the fermentation, and strangely enough, reproduces itself sixfold, so that when on the fourth day it is skimmed off (except for a small protective coating) it is available in a vastly increased quantity for a repetition of the process. Rather reminds one of what happened after the first rabbit was introduced to Australia!

The beer, for it is now the real article, stands for 24 hours, and is cooled down by the atemperators to a temperature of 60o. On the seventh day it is ‘racked’ into casks of different sizes, and is thus ready for distribution to the landlords of the firm’s ‘houses’, and so to the public.

Before passing on I would like to observe that I was particularly struck by the neatness and cleanliness of the fermenting room, with its white painted walls of glazed brick and specially prepared windows.

From the main building we went to the department where the beer for bottling is chilled, filtered and carbonated, and sold to the public as a non-deposit bottled beer; then to the store in which are stocks of maturing proprietary Bass, Guinness, Worthington, Reid’s Stout, and Whiteway’s Cyder, bottled from hog-heads supplied by the brewers of these popular brands of drink.

We then had a look at the process of cleaning out or ‘sweetening’ as they call it of returned empty casks, with hot water and steam. The men responsible have an ingenious dodge for satisfying themselves that the interior of the cask is to their satisfaction. Through the tap hole they insert a gas jet, and by peering through the bung hole they can scrutinise clearly the interior. There is also the test of smell, which, to use the trade term, is a case of being ‘professionally nosey’. Rather like a reporter’s function, I could not help thinking!

Finally, we looked in on the cooper in his little den, where he mends broken casks with that nimbleness and dexterity peculiar to his calling, and also makes a limited number of new casks for the firm. There are other departmental workshops such as case repairing, wheelwrights and engineering.”

This reporter further comments on the sporting activities of the workforce, in particular the football team. They used the playing fields behind the brewery. Even up until 1951, sporting activities were being held by the brewery. Also horticultural and craft exhibitions would be held amongst the sporting activities, such as a Barrow and Beer Race, with prizes being awarded. The publicans of the various tied houses of the brewery’s substantial estate could compete for prizes in the area of horticulture. A floral prize giving was held annually.