St Mary Magdalene, Norwich - Pockthorpe Brewery

The Pockthorpe Brewery

Steward and Patteson’s brewery was known as the Pockthorpe Brewery. Originally called the Anchor Brewery, Steward & Patteson was one of Norfolk’s great breweries. It was the big employer and owned land up as far up as Violet Road and Gertrude Road. The sole surviving part of Pockthorpe Brewery (the old offices on Barrack Street) are presently occupied by QD.

Early history

The history of Pockthorpe Brewery began in 1793 when John Patteson purchased it from Charles Greeves (with a view to finding an occupation for his son) and in 1794 bought Beevors at 86 Magdalene Street. In 1797, HRH Prince William Frederick had lunch at the Pockthorpe Brewery, in a large newly manufactured vat.

After members of the Steward family - including the brothers William, Ambrose, Timothy - joined Patteson’s son John Staniforth Patteson in 1820 (the year his father retired), the company became known until 1831 as Steward, Patteson & Stewards.

Continuous expansion

Before the end of the 18th century, Patteson had acquired James Beevor and Jehosophat Postle in Norwich, and Fisher's North Quay Brewery in Yarmouth. Two members of the Steward family joined Patteson's son in 1820, when the company became known as Steward, Patteson & Steward.

The brewery itself was originally known as the Anchor Brewery, but by the end of the 1850s it had been rechristened as the Pockthorpe Brewery.

Acquisitions that took place during the 19th century:

1830, the Oak Street brewery of John Morse
1837, Peter Finch's brewery, at which stage the company became Steward, Patteson, Finch & Company
1845, Yarmouth brewery of Samuel Paget & Son with 25 houses
1866, Bell's of Gorleston with 20 houses
1878, Bircham & Sons (Reepham) with 52 houses.

The company was registered as Steward & Patteson Ltd in July 1895. Further acquisitions followed:

1895, Morse & Woods (Swaffham) with 51 pubs.
1897, William J. J. Bolding (Weybourne) with 14 pubs.
1914, The Eye Brewery, with 20 pubs from Adnams & Co. Ltd of Southwold.
1922, Charles Pearse The Crown Brewery, East Dereham.
1929, W. & T. Bagge (Kings Lynn) with 75 houses.
1949, Soames & Co. Ltd of Spalding with 240 pubs.
1957, a merger with East Anglian Breweries Ltd of Ely.

Over the years all the smaller breweries of Norfolk fell by the wayside to the “big four” Steward & Patteson, Bullards, Morgans and Youngs, Crawshay & Youngs.

Bottled beer and beer duties

It was decided to produce beer from English barley after 1931, despite the fact that most brewers considered foreign barley necessary to provide drainage in the mash tun.

Beer duties increased enormously over the decades. In 1880 it was 6 shillings per Standard Barrel. During the First World War it was repeatedly increased, until in 1918 it was 50 shillings per Standard Barrel. The duty was doubled in 1920.

After bottled beers were first introduced in 1893, popularity increased rapidly, so that bigger and more up to date machinery was constantly being introduced. The trade for the last full year before the outbreak of World War II was over 1,000,000 dozen bottles.

Small pubs, horses and lorries, and new offices

Before 1885 licences for the sale of beer were easily available, so that hundreds of unsuitable pubs, being small, unventilated, and with low ceilings, and with little accommodation, proliferated across the country, The pubs that were scattered across Pockthorpe were typical of this kind of licenced house. A new law passed in 1904 enabled the authorities to shut these down, by compensating the owners and licence holders. 126 houses were closed following the 1904 Compensation Act.

In 1885 the company had over 70 horses and 58 waggons, drays and gigs. Steward & Patteson acquired one of the first motor lorries in the district, a Milnes Daimler – iron-tyred in 1905, which originally was used for Mineral Water deliveries, but proved rather unpopular with the local residents. Other vehicles were purchased from time to time, and when in 1914 the Great War commenced and many of our horses were immediately requisitioned by the Army, mechanical transport became a necessity.

The original offices of the firm grew in size by absorbing adjoining cottages, so that they consisted of a great many small rooms at different levels. These were replaced by a new building erected in 1928.

Slum clearance and the widening of Barrack Street enabled the Company to build a vehicle garage with workshops. This opened in 1939. Between the wars there was a fine stable of horses, all Grey Percherons. George was awarded the King's Cup at the Royal Show in 1935, but was killed when the Stables were hit during an air raid in August 1942.

The end of an era

Steward & Patteson which by the 1960s was one of the largest non-metropolitan breweries in the country.

In 1961, Steward & Pattesons and Bullards bought between them Morgan’s modern brewery on King Street which had 400 pubs. Gerald Bullard and John Morse sat down together and cut a pack of cards to see who would have the first pick of the pubs. In 1964 1,200 properties were said to be controlled by Steward & Patteson, across a region that extended from Essex to the Lincoln.

Steward & Patteson were becoming financially stretched, and in February 1967 the company was sold to Watney Mann for £7,666,270. By 1968 the Pockthorpe Brewery was making around 131,000 barrels a year, but the assurances by Watney Mann about the preservation of the Pockthorpe Brewery were not kept, and the brewery was closed - the last beer was brewed on at the 12-acre site at Pockthorpe in January 1970. The brewery's chimney, a landmark in the locality, was demolished in 1974, after which the land was cleared for redevelopment.