[Misc] Kemp Town Brewery

[Ludensian Gull]

Some 10 years ago whilst digging over my garden in Lincolnshire I came across a circular brass inscribed Kemp Town Brewery Brighton. Had forgotten about until today when routing around in a cupboard came across it. Got the brasso out and although obviously tired looking after many yrs underground it's come up ok . Has anybody got any information on said brewery ? Or where I ask to find out how it made it's way into Lincolnshire . Not even sure what it was for ,if anything.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

It's mentioned in this history of Brighton's breweries.

https://www.allthingsbrightonbeautiful.com/the-history-of-breweries-in-brighton/

 

[Dirk Lehmann's Python]

Do they not still brew at Heart in Hand? (Think that's the pub name but there's a couple in Brighton with similar names so i might have muddled it)

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[Ludensian Gull]

This is said object

 

[Bozza]

The Egremont in Worthing still has Kemptown Brewery on its signage.

 

[Fourteenth Eye]

The Egremont in Worthing still has Kemptown Brewery on its signage.

View attachment 104603

I believe it actually still sells Kemptown beers as well. I may have to investigate further.......

 

[Bozza]

I believe it actually still sells Kemptown beers as well. I may have to investigate further.......

A couple of minutes searching reveals Kemptown Brewery Limited has a single shareholder and that is the guy who I know owns The Egremont.

Seems there might also be/have been a Kemp Town Brewery and a Kemp Town Brewery Co.

(The Egremont is a great pub BTW)

 

[Ludensian Gull]

A couple of minute's searching reveals Kemptown Brewery Limited has a single shareholder and that is the guy who I know owns The Egremont.

Seems there might also be/have been a Kemp Town Brewery and a Kemp Town Brewery Co.

(The Egremont is a great pub BTW)

I looked into the history of brewery but couldn't see anything past it selling out to Charringtons. Goes back to1844 I believe.strange how it turned up in Lincolnshire ?

 

[Mackenzie]

Do they not still brew at Heart in Hand? (Think that's the pub name but there's a couple in Brighton with similar names so i might have muddled it)

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Hand in Hand.

 

[Pickles]

The Egremont in Worthing still has Kemptown Brewery on its signage.

View attachment 104603

That signage was only brought back to life recently when it was totally refurbished, to a great standard imo.

It's possible that [MENTION=11928]vegster[/MENTION] or [MENTION=5306]Questions[/MENTION] could confirm or tell us more.

 

[pishhead]

Hand in Hand.

And the brewery is called Hand brew co, they very recently started brewing after having an upgrade on their brewing kit.

 

[Monkey Man]

Here you go. From a book I published in 2000.

Kemp Town Brewery

The Kemp Town Brewery was one of the two brewing giants in Brighton, even though it was always overshadowed by Tamplins. Perhaps a merger between these two great rivals might have resulted in the type of regional superpower that could have held its own even in today’s tough beer market: as it was, Tamplins became part of what emerged as Scottish Courage and is now Heineken UK, Britain’s biggest brewer, and the Kemp Town Brewery joined what became the almost as vast Bass empire, now Molson Coors UK.

The Kemp Town Brewery started its life in about 1839 as the Bristol Brewery. It owed its name to the local residency of the Marquis of Bristol, in whose honour William Hallett also built the Bristol Hotel. Hallett, a Brighton mayor and magistrate, ran the brewery with Henry Abbey (another Brighton mayor) from 1854 and when he died in 1862 the business passed into the hands of the Abbey family.

At a time when the concept of British lager was viewed with ridicule or hostility, Abbey was brewing what may well have been the first German-style beer ever attempted in Sussex. In 1887 his Brighton Lager joined a line-up which also included No 1 Brighton, Store Ale XXX, IPA, Brighton Pale Ale and Mild. But it seems the local market was not quite ready for this type of innovation, and by 1889 lager had been replaced by Double Stout and Nourishing Stout.

This small failure was not the most significant event of 1889. In that year, Abbey bought the pubs of the Amber Ale Brewery following Henry Longhurst’s death, and planned massive alterations at his own brewery in Seymour Street. Work began on the complete remodelling of the grinding, mashing and boiling plant, and the erection of a 100ft chimney stack along with new apparatus designed to consume the smoke which plagued the residents of Brighton. New pumps were installed at the artesian well and a new bottle store was constructed.

These technical advances could not prevent the disastrous fire at the maltings in 1907 when a kiln overheated. Some 2,300 quarters of malt was destroyed, and Abbey was only partially insured for the £10,000 losses.
But the Kemp Town Brewery (as it was known from 1908) survived this setback, just as it survived the death of Henry Abbey in 1911. Expansion continued, first with the purchase of Eastbourne’s Lion Brewery in 1914 and then Worthing’s Tower Brewery a decade later. It also bought the Portslade Brewery in 1919, but sold it on to its Brighton rival Smithers after first picking off the pubs that it wanted.

It would be sad to think that the brewery’s commercial success came at the expense of exploited workers, but an inquest report from 1925 certainly creates that sort of impression. Herbert Haddington, a 32-year-old drayman, had been delivering beer to a pub in Carlton Hill shortly before Christmas. While struggling single-handedly with heavy barrels of beer, he had fallen into the cellar and died. A critical coroner remarked that this should have been a job for two men, rather than one.
The late 1920s saw the Brighton brewing industry consolidate still further, with the pub estates of both E Robins and Smithers split between the Kemp Town Brewery and Tamplins. Despite the relative lack of competition, chairman William Abbey felt moved to criticise the marketing tactics of his rivals.

“I think it is a great mistake to cover public houses with the name of the brewers,” he declared. “It should be sufficient to display this in a quiet, subdued way. In many places advertising has become a blot on the landscape, especially in some of the seaside resorts, where the names of the firms are displayed out of all proportion and detract from, rather than add to, the attractiveness of the surroundings.

“The Kemp Town Brewery have always striven to build their houses in an attractive and artistic way, and to study the quality of their advertising rather than quantity.”

The Kemp Town Brewery’s interest in aesthetics resulted in an association with John Leopold Denham, a renowned Brighton architect who designed a number of pubs for the business and whose work can be seen today at the ornate Freemasons Tavern in Hove, a 19th century building reimagined by Denham in an art deco style.

The market had reached saturation point in Brighton, where the Kemp Town Brewery and Tamplins enjoyed a cosy co-existence which gave them control of virtually every pub in the town, but there were new possibilities elsewhere in the south east. Foreseeing the growth of air travel, the brewery bought 5,300 acres of land at Lullingstone in Kent in 1936, where there was talk of building a new aerodrome for London. Negotiations began with the Southern Railway for the sale of 800 acres for this purpose, and plans were drawn up for a hotel.

As history has shown us, airports serving the capital sprung up at Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted, but not at Lullingstone, and the land was sold to Kent County Council in 1938.

Around this time the brewery extended its bottling department, but there were no other significant investments before the company’s takeover by Charrington in 1954.

Brewing continued for another 10 years, and the site was closed in 1966. Demolition in 1970 saw not only the end of the brewery but the demise of Seymour Street itself. The site is now occupied by flats, although the cellars – once earmarked as an underground car park – remain intact. The Kemp Town Brewery name also lives on, both on William Abbey’s “attractive and artistic” pub signs and at the Hand in Hand in Upper St James’s Street, which has adopted the title for its microbrewing activities.

 

[Questions]

That signage was only brought back to life recently when it was totally refurbished, to a great standard imo.

It's possible that [MENTION=11928]vegster[/MENTION] or [MENTION=5306]Questions[/MENTION] could confirm or tell us more.

Kemptown brewery owned the place from 1924 to 1926

Worthing pubs......

“The Egremont was built in 1835 by George Greenfield who also built the adjoining brewery, later known as Tower Brewery and then in 1930 as Chapman's Brewery.
We believe the Egremont name is in honour of the Earl of Egremont. Supporting evidence can be found on the outside of the building in the form of a coat of arms featuring three lion heads and a chevron.”

 

[Pickles]

Kemptown brewery owned the place from 1924 to 1926

Worthing pubs......

“The Egremont was built in 1835 by George Greenfield who also built the adjoining brewery, later known as Tower Brewery and then in 1930 as Chapman's Brewery.
We believe the Egremont name is in honour of the Earl of Egremont. Supporting evidence can be found on the outside of the building in the form of a coat of arms featuring three lion heads and a chevron.”

I remember now that a small brewery was once in The Egremont, down the side road (York Place) at the back, and/or opposite?

Edit. I moved to Worthing about 30 years ago, and I did a lot of work for that pub and The Royal Oak, opposite. That's when I was told of the brewery of the old days.

 

[Questions]

I remember now that a small brewery was once in The Egremont, down the side road (York Place) at the back, and/or opposite?

Edit. I moved to Worthing about 30 years ago, and I did a lot of work for that pub and The Royal Oak, opposite. That's when I was told of the brewery of the old days.

You can see the old brewery in the picture. In those days brewing started on the top floor (hoist) with the deliveries and each process dropped down a floor .......... That’s simplifying it somewhat Pickles but it was simply letting gravity help out. Don’t do an original gravity pun either !!!!

 

[Pickles]

You can see the old brewery in the picture. In those days brewing started on the top floor (hoist) with the deliveries and each process dropped down a floor .......... That’s simplifying it somewhat Pickles but it was simply letting gravity help out. Don’t do an original gravity pun either !!!!

I won't let you down.

 

[Blue3]

A couple of minutes searching reveals Kemptown Brewery Limited has a single shareholder and that is the guy who I know owns The Egremont.

Seems there might also be/have been a Kemp Town Brewery and a Kemp Town Brewery Co.

(The Egremont is a great pub BTW)

I hear good things about the Egremont and keep meaning to pop in for one, Worthing has a few nice pubs I recently tried the seldon by Worthing hospital nice selection of beers friendly staff and customers

 

[Snowy]

I hear good things about the Egremont and keep meaning to pop in for one, Worthing has a few nice pubs I recently tried the seldon by Worthing hospital nice selection of beers friendly staff and customers

The new MicroPub opposite the Egremont is good too. It’s called The Old Bike Store because it used to be a Bicycle Shop.


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