Est. 1904
Six moments in the life of a building that pumped a town’s water long before it made anything worth drinking. The line below runs on past both ends, because a history is a length cut out of something longer.
1904
Two beam engines and a well sunk into the chalk, built to move water for a town of eleven thousand people.
1931
The town went over to mains supply, the well was capped, and the boiler house stood empty for the next four decades.
1969
Three friends took a lease on the smaller hall, cleaned out the settling tank and mashed forty gallons in it.
1994
We paid to have the borehole surveyed and brought back into use, and that water has decided every recipe since.
2011
Fifteen years of repairs ended with a new roof, and the room that once raised steam became the tap room.
2023
The last of the long-haul grain contracts ran out. Everything in the mash tun now grows within sight of the chimney.