Bass Charrington Ltd (Runcorn)
Bass Charrington Ltd, Preston Brook Brewery, Whitehouse Industrial Estate, Runcorn, Cheshire.
A large-scale brewery which opened in 1973. Brewing commenced in 1974, renamed as Preston Brook in 1986. Closed August 1991 and demolished.
A short essay on the brewery by Ray Anderson:
Intended to be Bass’s prestige mega brewery when it was planned, it soon became an embarrassment. It was badly designed, built in the wrong place with constant industrial unrest, and became renowned for the poor quality of its beer. Although Bass’s greatest failure, Runcorn was a classic example of how the company worked. Decisions were taken at the top with little room for individual initiative further down the line. This rigid, centralised management approach generally worked well for Bass, sparing them from the confusion that confounded some other, inadequately managed, national brewers. Bass became a big, boring but successful company with hubris unmatched by any other UK brewer. The down side was that when they got it wrong, which they did at Runcorn from the start, it was very difficult to turn the bureaucratic, hierarchical leviathan around even when they sent their best people in to try and make it work.
- Read: What was wrong with Runcorn from a technical point of view? by David Ruddlesden
An assortment of views of the brewery. Click on the left or right buttons to scroll through our gallery, or click the centre button to view the thumbnails
