British brewing industry Decorative ceramics in the...

63Brewery History Number 124/5

Decorative ceramics in the buildings of the British brewing industry

Lynn Pearson

Ceramics have long been an integral partof the structures of the brewing industry.From perforated ceramic malt kiln tiles toentire ceramic facades of both pubs andbreweries, many types of tile, architectur-al ceramic and glazed brick have beenused internally and externally throughoutthe industry. Until recently, however,there had been hardly any systematicinvestigation of the pattern of use ofceramics within the brewing industry.This paper considers the relationshipbetween the ceramics and brewingindustries by taking a chronologicalapproach to the use of ceramic materialsfor specific functions in the brewery andthe public house, and attempts todescribe the interconnections betweenbrewing and ceramics firms.

Brewing industry buildings up to 1870

The predecessors of the industrial-scalebreweries were small-scale brewhouseswhich could be found throughout thecountry in farmsteads, cottages, monas-teries and other domestic environmentsup to the eighteenth century. Despitetheir ubiquity there is, however, no evi-dence of any use of tiles in these brew-

houses. Even in country house brew-houses, which sometimes reached thesize of the later commercial breweries,tiles are notable by their absence. In con-trast, the use of fashionable Dutch tiles inthe British eighteenth-century countryhouse dairy has been well documented; itseems the lady of the house might beexpected to take an interest in the deli-cate workings of the dairy but not in themore steamy, smelly activities of thebrewhouse (or its frequent neighbour, thelaundry).1

Decorative ceramics, then, appear to besolely a feature of commercial, large-scale brewing and retailing. The industri-alisation of the brewing industry was welladvanced in London by the mid eigh-teenth century, and the first recorded useof ceramics in this new industry occurred,not surprisingly, in London, where earlyeighteenth-century delftware manufactur-ers produced pictorial tiled panels for useas inn signs. These signs appear to havebeen sited externally, and a survivingpanel showing a cock and bottle isthought to have been connected with theeponymous inn on London's CannonStreet.2

64 Journal of the Brewery History Society

The brewer's house, potentially with anumber of tiled fireplaces, had alwaysbeen an integral part of the industrialbrewery. Two fire surrounds, completewith delftware tiles, can still be seentoday at what is now the brewery tap ofTolly Cobbold's Cliff Brewery, Ipswich.This distinctive little building dates fromsoon after 1746 and used to be known asCliff House; it was once the home of theCobbold family. The fire surrounds areundated, but could be contemporary withthe original building. It is almost certainthat other brewer's houses of this period,for instance at Wethered's in Marlow,would have contained similar fire sur-rounds, but their fate is unknown.

There is no evidence of the use of wall orfloor tiles inside the brewing areas of theearly industrialised breweries, but thebest-known piece of ceramic decorationon the exterior of an early brewery build-ing is the splendid Coade stone lionwhich stood above the river facade ofGoding's Lion Brewery, Lambeth. Thebrewhouse was built in 1836-37 in classi-cal style by Francis Edwards, one of thefirst architects to specialise in the designof industrial structures. Goding's trade-mark lion was supplied by the nearbyCoade's artificial stone works, and wasone of their last products before its clo-sure. Fortunately the lion survived thedemolition of the brewery in 1949, andnow looks across the Thames from theeast side of Westminster Bridge.

The first recorded instance of ceramicsused decoratively inside an inn occurs in

1850, when The Builder reported that thebilliard room of Gurton's tavern, inLondon's Old Bond Street, had been dec-orated with tiled pictures of appropriatesubjects including 'Bacchus and Ariadne';they were said to be 'not without merit'.3The manufacturer may have beenDoulton of Lambeth, a firm which built upa strong association with the licensedtrade from the mid nineteenth century.Thus by the mid nineteenth century, dec-orative ceramics had been recordedinside and outside the tavern, but onlyexternally at the brewery itself, apart fromthe special case of the brewer's house, arather more domestic environment thanthe brewhouse and associated struc-tures.

The brewery 1870-1914

The amount of brewery constructionbegan to grow in pace during the 1860s,rising steadily to become a major boom inthe 1880s. These construction workswere generally carried out at the brew-eries of the medium- to large-scaleindustrial brewers, who prospered in thisperiod, whilst the publican-brewers andsmall-scale producers were in decline.4Towards the end of the nineteenth cen-tury breweries became not only morenumerous but more ornamental, with tilesand colourful glazed bricks used asexterior decoration from the early 1870sonward. The emphasis was usually ondecoration of the brewhouse tower orchimney, thus attracting public attentionto the brewery within the townscape.


The 120' high brewhouse tower ofCronshaw's Alexandra Brewery,Manchester, was built in 1872 by thearchitect James Redford, a local manwith a wide-ranging general practice. Thearchitectural style of the brewery wasdescribed by The Builder as being 'earlyLombardian Gothic'; Redford used stonedressings, ornamental brickwork andpanels of glazed green and red bricks toenliven the tower. The Italianate stylewas used for occasional breweries, forinstance the Swan Brewery inLeatherhead, erected in 1874 by theLondon architect W. Barns-Kinsey. Here,the basic red brick form of the steambrewery was decorated with blue andwhite moulded bricks, while the chimneyshaft sported bands of encaustic tiles.5The brewhouse tower at Kirk's CastleBrewery, Stockton-on-Tees, built as partof the enlargement of the brewery in1878, was decorated with a broad che-quered frieze of tiles just below rooflevel.6

All these 1870s breweries have longsince been demolished, along with thebrewery warehouse built for the Londonfirm of bottlers M.B. Foster & Sons in1874 by the architect Thomas Harris, astrong advocate of iron construction.The warehouse, illustrated anddescribed at length in The Builder, wasornamented with glazed tiles and terra-cotta by Doulton of Lambeth. Letteringon the tiles spelled out Foster's name,address and trade; they were probablythe largest bottling firm in the world atthis time.7 Doulton's produced all typesof ware for brewers and publicans,

including everything from barrels, bot-tles and jugs to internal and externaldecorative faience for public houses;this important element of their overallproduction began in the mid nineteenthcentury and continued until the 1930s.Their involvement with the brewersWatney's even extended to the produc-tion of several sizeable tile panels forthe Watney family home at Pangbourne,Berkshire, in 1885; one panel purportedto include a view of the brewery itself,distinguished largely by its plethora ofchimney stacks.8

From the early 1880s, glazed brickswere preferred by brewers' architects asthe most hygienic finish for internal wallsof the brewhouse and fermenting rooms.The first report in the trade press tomention this material concerns JohnSmith's majestic new brewery atTadcaster, built in 1883 and designed bythe well-known London brewers' archi-tects Scamell & Colyer. Here only thetun room was faced with white-glazedbricks, but by the end of the decade apublicity-orientated Brewers' Journalarticle on Ramsden's Stone TroughBrewery, Halifax, enthused 'The internalfacings of the brewery are almost entirelyof white glazed bricks, with colouredglazed brick dados, thus adding consid-erably to the maintenance of cleanli-ness.' The Stone Trough was designedby William Bradford, the most high-pro-file and prolific of the late nineteenth-century brewers' architects. In one of hismany published pieces on brewerydesign, he opined:


'Where the first outlay is not such a seri-ous consideration, I would most stronglyadvise the free use of glazed bricks forthe interior, more especially for theengine room, mash tun stage, and fer-menting house, as walls thus built aremuch slower to receive the natural accu-mulations of dirt, dust, and moisture aris-ing in a brewery than an ordinary brickwall, and the air can consequently bekept in a much purer condition; andabsolute cleanliness ... which is of thegreatest importance ... can be easilymaintained by washing down the walls,and without interfering in any way withthe working of the brewery.'9

By the turn of the century, internal whiteglazed brick finishes were the norm for

larger new breweries, with specially madebricks used to turn difficult internal angles,thus doing away with sharp, hard-to-cleancorners. Coloured glazed bricks wereoften added to form decorative dados, asin the attractive fermenting room of Cain'sMersey Brewery, Liverpool, which wasbuilt by 1902 (Fig. 1).

During the 1880s, although the decora-tive or ornamental brewery becamealmost commonplace, external ceramicdisplay was far from lavish. WilliamBradford used terracotta dressings on hisfirst substantial brewery contract,Stansfeld's Swan Brewery, Fulham(1881-82), while Scamell & Colyer speci-fied specially-designed external tile pan-els beneath the windows of Walker's

Figure 1. Decorative glazed brickwork in the former hop store of the Mersey Brewery, Liverpool.


Clarence Street Brewery, Burton uponTrent (1883). The tiles were Brown'spatent tiles, ornamented with hops andfoliage.10 One of the most elaborate ofthe ornamental breweries was EldridgePope's Dorchester Brewery, designed in1880 by a combination of Scamell &Colyer and local architect GeorgeCrickmay, who later built up a nationalpractice. The brewery has much poly-chromatic brickwork and a small amountof tiling above windows on the facadeoverlooking the main road.

Terracotta dressings were most oftenused to emphasise brewery entrances ornames, as at Brickwood's PortsmouthBrewery (1900) or Whitbread's GarrettStreet stables near their Chiswell StreetBrewery, London (1897). The most flam-boyant use of terracotta in a brewery con-text was for the rebuilding and enlarge-ment of Cain's Mersey Brewery,Liverpool, in 1896-1902 (Fig. 2). Thesculpted shapes of rich, red Ruabon ter-racotta, probably supplied by J.C.Edwards, and broad expanses of redbrick make for an emphatic architecturalstatement, modified slightly in later yearswhen the brewery was taken over in 1923by Higson's, who naturally amended thewording on its exterior (Fig. 3).11 The uni-corn, still complete with intact horn, is asuperb example of the art of terracottamanufacturing.

Another area of the brewery on display tothe public, apart from its landmark tower,was the office, which was often given amore ornate architectural treatment. Theinteriors were also fitted out to a high

standard, although few could competewith the Newcastle Breweries' HaymarketOffice, built in 1901 by the local architec-tural practice Joseph Oswald & Son, whooften did public house work for theBreweries. The exterior was impressiveenough, but inside was (and still is) amagnificent ceramic display. The entireground floor was faced with glazedfaience in shades of brown, green andbuff, which included the Breweries' nameand logo; the open arches of the clerks'and accountants' room are especiallygrand (Fig. 4). The ceramics were proba-bly supplied by Burmantofts of Leeds,

Figure 2. Terracotta detail of the Grapes, theMersey Brewery tap.


with whom the Oswalds had collaboratedon other local ventures. This type of inte-rior tile scheme, often included in latenineteenth-century bank, insurance com-pany and utilities offices, is a rarity in abrewery context, perhaps because therewas less need to impress paying cus-tomers.

The public house 1870-1914

The British brewery wars of the late nine-teenth and early twentieth centuries havebeen well documented, as have theireffects on public house ownership, build-ing and rebuilding. It must not, however,be assumed that pubs throughout Britain

were subjected to changes over exactlythe same period of time, nor that thepace of change was everywhere identi-cal. In London, the most significantperiods for pub building and alterationwere 1886-92 and 1896-9, the latterbeing the greater boom; after 1899, pubalterations in London almost came to ahalt. In the provincial towns and cities,although the effects of the brewery warswere felt, the exact outcome dependedon the financial situation of the localbreweries, strength of competition fromthe national brewers, public house own-ership patterns (particularly ownershipby non brewing interests) and the stateof local economies.

Figure 3. Terracotta work on the Mersey Brewery reflecting its sale to Higson's in 1923.


In Portsmouth, alteration and rebuildinghardly slackened, continuing throughoutthe 1900s and into the inter war years,while Birmingham saw booms in pubbuilding work around 1891-2, 1896,1899-1902, 1906-7, 1909 and 1913. InNewcastle upon Tyne, where publichouse ownership was spread widelyamongst non brewers as well as brewers,pub rebuilding peaked in 1890 and againin 1897, but continued at a slower rateinto the 1900s. In nearby North Shields,the prosperity of the fishing industryensured that pub building was still takingplace all through the 1900s. A series ofgiant pubs was built in Sunderland in theearly 1900s, but then pub buildingceased almost completely in 1907. The

Scottish public house seemed to avoiddecline altogether between the mid1880s and 1914.

The importance of the brewery wars forpub design and the use of architecturalceramics lay in the fact that attractive,colourful, easily cleaned, hygienic tilesand faience could be used on the facadeto catch the eye of the passer-by, to pres-ent the symbol or brand image of pub orbrewery, to brighten up long corridors, toadd colour and intricate form to the bararea, and to provide a modern appear-ance for toilets. Ceramics were widelyused in the public house from the early1880s, but their finest hour came in thelate 1890s and especially the early

Figure 4. Detail of a fire surround in the Haymarket Office of the Newcastle Breweries,Newcastle upon Tyne, showing the Breweries' logo.


1900s. The exact nature of the relation-ship between brewer, architect, builder,tiler and ceramic manufacturer deter-mined the ultimate design of the publichouse. It is clear from the differing histo-ries of pub building around the turn of thecentury in even the few areas quotedabove that designs are likely to showconsiderable local peculiarities.

The regular use of decorative ceramics inthe pub context began around 1883,when the Poole firm Carter's started toproduce historical tile murals for publichouses and other public buildings.12

They could be found in the entrance hallsof several leading London taverns by1886, and although other ceramic manu-facturers rapidly developed their own tilemurals, Carter's remained successful inthis field until well into the next century asthey tended to be cheaper than theircompetitors.13 Picture panels were even-tually combined with wall tiling and evena ceramic bar front to give a completeceramic interior. An outstanding exampleof this type of design, which peaked inpopularity in the early years of the twenti-eth century, is the Mountain Daisy,Sunderland, built in 1900-2 by local archi-

Figure 5. The Mountain Daisy, Sunderland, with ceramics by Craven Dunnill of Jackfield.


tects (and theatre specialists) William &T.R. Milburn (Fig. 5).14 Here CravenDunnill of Jackfield supplied seven hand-painted tile panels showing local scenesranging from Durham Cathedral toBamburgh Castle, as well as decorativewall tiling and a quarter-circle bar frontdisplaying an animal head motif. A photo-graph of this miniature drinking palaceappeared in Craven Dunnill's catalogue,perfectly illustrating the publicity value ofthis type of work for the ceramic manu-facturer. The Garden Gate, Leeds, built in1902, is a similar ceramic tour-de-force,minus the pictorial panels but with aceramic facade; the manufacturer wasalmost certainly the local firm,Burmantofts. Ceramic bar counters weresomething of a northern taste in designterms.

As to external ceramic work, the use of aceramic facade - usually coloured - tobrand the pub as part of a particularbrewer's estate began in earnest aroundthe turn of the century.15 There are clearregional differences in types of facade,with the Birmingham 'tile and terracotta'style - a terracotta facade with an ornateinterior including tilework - being some-thing of a pioneer in the field. It was pop-ular during 1896-1904, the terracottamanufacturer often being the HathernStation Brick and Terra Cotta Company ofLoughborough.16 During the 1900s andinto the inter war years the competingPortsmouth breweries, Brickwoods andPortsmouth United, vied to producememorable ceramic pub facades.Brickwoods were first to introduce thismaterial, using dark red and brown

glazed bricks or faience with white letter-ing; United preferred green faience. Mostof the faience, along with the doorwaymosaics, appears to have been suppliedby Carter's.17 Many small pubs aroundNorth Shields, Tynemouth and Blyth havebrown or brown and yellow ground floorfaience facades, usually in a version ofclassical style and occasionally highlyornamented. Most of these pubs werebuilt between 1900 and 1914. TheNewcastle based Oswald family architec-tural practice was responsible for severalof these pubs, notably those built forNewcastle Breweries and local wine andspirit merchants Bell & Taylor. Greenglazed brick ground floor facades arealso common on smaller pubs in manyareas, including Weymouth and GreatYarmouth, but there are many other localand regional variations. Red and bluefaience facades can also be foundamongst early twentieth-century pubs,but green and particularly brown aremore common; this doubtless has a rela-tion to the cost of the various colours offaience as well as brand identity.

During the Edwardian period, use of thepublic house facade as an advertisementdeveloped to the extent that products -beer, India Pale Ale, lager, and so forth -the brewery name (sometimes as a logo)and the pub name (often in pictorial form)were all portrayed in ceramics. Thisresulted in some splendid facades, forinstance the Howard Arms in Carlisle,where the facade is signed by Doulton's,and the superlative white horse on theeponymous hotel in Aberystwyth; nomaker is known in this case. The Swan


Inn (now Murphy's) at Poole has a glazedbrick facade in lime and emerald green,with rich brown faience dressings, apanel reading 'Marston's Poole Ales'anda dolphin keystone above the door; thisrefers to Marston's Dolphin Brewery. Thetiles were probably manufactured byCarter's. Tiles could also be used to enliv-en a more traditional facade, as in theuse of strips of delicate red floral tiles bySherwin & Cotton on the pilasters of theHalf Moon in Durham (1894).

These complex tile and terracottafacades and interiors were not alwaysprofitable for the ceramics manufactur-ers; indeed, they were often seen as lossleaders, sold in the hope of obtaining themore lucrative contracts for bricks andsanitary ware. The excruciatingly difficultproduction system for terracotta was onereason for this state of affairs, with draw-ings being exchanged between architectand terracotta draughtsman, models andphotographs needing agreement, andfinally the labour-intensive manufacturingprocess itself.18 The Stork Hotel,Birkenhead (1903), appears to be anexample of a tile manufacturer using apub to display its wares, in this instancetiles from the Swan Tile Works, Liverpool;the unusual design of the facade is com-plemented by rather more elegant ArtNouveau tiles within. It is known thatsome architects built up long-term rela-tionships with particular ceramics manu-facturers, for instance James and ListerLea of Birmingham with Hathern andMinton Hollins around 1900, and withMaw's of Jackfield in the years after theFirst World War. Three Birmingham brew-ers - Mitchells & Butlers, Holt's andAtkinson's - also commissioned Maw'sdirectly a number of times after 1914,both for tilework at pubs and at the brew-eries themselves.19 However, the sourceof pub ceramics is often unknown,despite being of high quality, for exampleat the Pier Hotel, Birkenhead, with itsunusual stonework facade and spectacu-lar Birkenhead Brewery logo (Fig. 6).Doulton's collaborated with the GreatYarmouth architect, inventor and

Figure 6. The Pier Hotel, Birkenhead, display-ing the stonework logo of the BirkenheadBrewery Company.


Borough Surveyor John William'Concrete' Cockrill in 1893 to patent theCockrill tile. Cockrill's invention was an L-shaped wall facing tile which obviated theneed for shuttering during the building ofconcrete walls by acting as a retainer forthe concrete. It was used in the construc-tion of Yarmouth's licensed Fish WharfRefreshment Rooms, completed in 1904,later the Dolphin public house.20

The exact nature of the brewer-architect-builder-tiler-manufacturer relationship isoften hard to define, as the records fromboth the ceramics and brewing industriesare lacking in this area. Apportioningresponsibility for the final design is a diffi-cult task, and one that is probably impos-sible given the collaborative nature of thework. The relationship between the vari-ous parties might be linear, that is thebrewer commissioned the architect, whoobtained estimates from the builder, whobrought in the tiler, who obtained materi-als from the manufacturer. However, therelationship could be short-circuited, if notall parties were involved; for instance, inan earlier incarnation of 'design and build',tiler and manufacturer could be responsi-ble for the design work, with no cleararchitectural involvement. The relation-ship could also become circular: a ceram-ic manufacturer might take a financialinterest in a brewery. Charles Canning ofGibbs & Canning, terracotta manufactur-ers of Glascote, near Tamworth, was oneof the founder subscribers in 1873 to theTamworth Brewery Company, althoughthe concern did not thrive.21 Sometimesthe relationship became more personal:the Arabic-style tile designs produced by

Carter's for the Tangier, a Portsmouth pubbuilt in 1911-12 for Portsmouth UnitedBreweries, are said to have originatedwith a holiday in Morocco taken by thebrewery company chairman. The pub wasalso the first in the Portsmouth Unitedestate to display the trademark greenfaience facade.22

The crucial point in the production of apub facade or interior was the actualassembly of the tiles or faience at the pub.The role of the tiler has previously beenunderestimated and poorly understood; itturns out to carry much responsibility forthe ultimate design, and substantial eco-nomic weight with ceramics manufactur-ers. Tilers and tile merchants Conway &Co worked on many pubs in theManchester area around the turn of thecentury, using Maw tiles and faience;detailed design work was carried out byMaw's, on the basis of mutual under-standing of historic architectural styles asdepicted on pub facades. Conways nor-mally specified only the faience colourand any lettering, leaving Maw's to pro-duce a detailed design, althoughConway's sometimes referred to stylessuch as 'Norman' which Maw's wereexpected to interpret without furtherexplanation, or asked to use the mouldsof a previous design.23 In 1906, Conway'sdemanded a substantial reduction inMaw's prices, which was granted, thealternative being that Conway's wouldcertainly have found another supplier.24

Local differences in the interactionbetween the brewing and ceramic indus-tries resulted in a wide variety of turn-of-


the-century public house designs.Although design of the pub was theoreti-cally the responsibility of the architect, inpractice an architect might not even beappointed by a brewer, who might simplyrely on the judgement of builder and tiler;in addition, the options available in termsof tiles and faience were determined bythe chosen manufacturer's capabilities.Because of the competitive economicconditions in both the brewing and ceram-ic industries, loyalty to a single ceramicmanufacturer on the part of brewer, archi-tect or tiler was not necessarily the norm;all looked for the best deal, although qual-ity and reliability were issues. In the fer-ment of pub and brewery building around1900, relationships between all the par-ties tended to the promiscuous. The endresult was enhanced product develop-ment as ceramic manufacturers attempt-ed to outdo each other and gain or retaincontracts, while memorable pub facadesevolved from this exciting design environ-ment. The brewers, ever conservative,were helped to survive by the innovationsof the ceramics firms, competing witheach other by means of the public house.Brewers, architects, builders, tilers andceramic manufacturers together evolvedbrewer's trademark styles over time; smallscale variations in this relationship pro-duced the style of the local.

Breweries and pubs during the inter-war years

After the heady days of the brewery con-struction boom and the pub wars, the

inter-war years were something of ananticlimax in terms of brewery construc-tion, while the 'improved public house' -respectable, airy, spacious, less ornateand often a little dull - came to dominatepub construction, especially after 1926.25

There was a certain amount of use ofceramic materials within breweries, but itwas pretty small beer, emphasising func-tion, not display: Maw's provided whiteglazed tiling in the engine room atMitchells & Butlers' Cape Hill Brewery,Smethwick, in 1920, and decorative walltiling for their drinking fountain room thefollowing year, while Atkinson's ordereddecorative tiling from Maw's for theirrefrigerator room in 1922. In GreatYarmouth, Lacon's brewery stores of1930 were unusually decorative for theperiod, with terracotta detailing and atiled inset of the Lacon's falcon symbol.26

Between the wars, Lacon's brewery wasone of the few which continued to usedecorative ceramics on their pubs, partlybecause of the enthusiasm of their in-house architect A.W. 'Billy' Ecclestone,who designed pubs in both neo-vernacu-lar and modern styles. For the former hehad bricks and tiles specially made by theSomerleyton Brick Company andTucker's of Loughborough respectively,while his modern pubs - for instance theClipper Schooner, built in 1938 - almostalways sported a tile panel by Carter's,which acted as the pub sign; these pan-els continued to be manufactured forLacon's into the 1950s. Similar tiled pubsigns can be found in other areas, forinstance at the Two Ships Hotel in


Rochdale, built during the 1920s for theBury Brewery Company. Inter-warRochdale pubs developed their own spe-cific style of decoration, which involved atiny lobby, with wall tiles giving a visualrendition of the pub name or brewerylogo, and a doorway mosaic containingthe pub name. Examples are the MerryMonk, with the Phoenix Brewery logo inits lobby wall tiling; the Globe, with tilingshowing delightful floating globes; andthe Albion, where 'CB & Co' probablyindicates the Cornbrook Brewery.

Ceramics remained popular throughoutthe inter-war period as a means of identi-fying the brewery, albeit using distinctiveplaques fixed to pub exteriors rather thanentire facades. Doulton's of Lambeth pro-duced a handsome polychromestoneware plaque for Greene King ofBury St Edmunds, designed by the sculp-tor George Edward Kruger-Gray in 1933;one appeared on all Greene King's pubs.After the closure of the Lambeth works in1956, these plaques were made atCarter's; the design was almost thesame.27 Doulton's also made plaques forthe brewers Tamplin's (Brighton), Arkell's(Swindon) and Cheltenham & Herefordfrom the 1930s.

A few breweries persisted with the idea ofcomplete ceramic facades between thewars, although these generally tendedtoward the bland, often using whitefaience, for instance Doulton'sCarraraware, in a form of stripped classi-cal style. Threlfall's of Liverpool oftencombined the white facade with a ceram-ic sign indicating the name of the pub; for

some time after pub names were com-monly placed on the outside of pubs, itwas their policy to have only the breweryname on the exterior of their houses.Threlfall's was one of several breweryclients supplied by Shaws of Darwen dur-ing the mid-1930s, as was Meux'sBrewery, for whom Shaws provided thecream and black faience facade of theBlue Coat Boy in Islington, a relativelyrare venture into a lightly modern style.The design included a full size Blue CoatBoy modelled in suitably colouredfaience.28

Perhaps as a reaction against all thisblandness and good taste in pub design,the occasional adventurous brewery didcome up with an art deco facade, or atleast a smidgeon of daring art deco orna-mentation. The entrance to the New Innat Selby, built around 1930, harbours afine panel of colourful art deco tiles madeby Candy Tiles of Newton Abbot, in thecontext of old-fashioned wood- andglasswork; the Globe Inn, Leeds has atiled dado made by the Lancashire firmPilkington's around 1930, with a strikingart deco inset. Both these houses mayhave been part of the John Smith'sTadcaster Brewery tied estate. In theScottish Borders at Tweedsmuir, theCrook Inn still displays a colourful artdeco tiling scheme dating from 1936 in itsbathrooms and toilets. More unusually,the early 1920s logo of the WinchesterBrewery, as portrayed on their publichouses, was a distorted version of the let-ters 'WB' repeated in art deco tilingaround the top of the facade. The coloursused were red and white, thus providing


an easily distinguishable branding fortheir estate. However, as the firm wastaken over in 1923, few of the houseshave survived intact; one remainingexample is the Englishman, EnglishRoad, Southampton.

It is interesting to note that while Britishpubs were becoming less decorative, thesituation was different in Australia. There,Tooth & Co of the Kent Brewery, Sydney,built and renovated many pubs during the1930s in art deco or early modern style.Their reasoning was that the use of goodarchitects would improve the image andappearance of their pubs, thus helping tocombat the increasingly powerful temper-ance movement. The pubs were some-times tiled, inside and out, and also fea-tured elaborate paintings on glass byleading artists. These 1930s pubs, whicheventually became known as 'toilet tile'pubs, inevitably went out of favour andwere often badly altered or demolished,but are now seen by historians as 'aunique and distinctive Australian buildingstyle'.29 The 'toilet tile' pubs were, appar-ently, hideously noisy when in use, as thenoise made by the customers reverberat-ed around the tiled interior.30

Post-war buildings of the brewingindustry

The only substantial post-1945 breweryto be built with significant use of ceramicswas Ansell's Aston Brewery, completed in1954. This impressive, flat-iron shapedstructure, which resembled an office

block rather than a traditional toweredbrewery, was faced with Doulton'sCarraraware and designed by Stone &Partners. However, since constructionwork at the site had begun in 1934, onlyto be delayed by the war, this is notexactly a post-war building. The breweryclosed in 1981, a victim of highly compet-itive trading conditions within the brewingindustry. The few new breweries builtsince that date tend to be huge beer fac-tories, housed in tin sheds with no needfor external ceramics; internally, whitefaience supplied by Shaws of Darwenwas occasionally used to line brewhousewalls during the 1960s and 1970s.

In and on the public house, however,there was a minor resurgence of ceramicuse after the war. Carter's were particu-larly active in this field, producing trade-mark plaques for a number of brewersincluding Morland's of Abingdon, GreeneKing, Charrington's - the Toby Ale sign -and Greenall's of Warrington, as well asbeing responsible for the Guinness tou-can, which was modelled by ReginaldGoodwin.31 The firm also did larger-scalework, for instance the 5' by 3' hand-paint-ed panel by Phyllis Hunter showingGaribaldi, for the Lacon's pub of thesame name in Great Yarmouth, which thebrewery rebuilt in 1957; the panel wasinstalled on its exterior the following year.Carter's work for breweries during the1950s varied from fireplaces and muralsbehind the bar counter to externalplaques and many entire facades, oftenincluding picture panels or logos.32


The Poole firm probably also manufac-tured the 'Devenish's Brewery' sign onthe facade of Brewers Quay, HopeSquare, Weymouth, originally the HopeBrewery of John Groves & Sons (1903-4). The brewery was designed by ArthurKinder & Son, a leading London firm ofbrewers'architects, and was taken overby its near-neighbours, Devenish & Co, in1960; it ceased to brew in 1985. To theright of the brewhouse, on a buildingwhich probably dates from the early1960s, is the handsome full-lengthframed tiled sign, in red sans serif letter-ing with a black shadow on yellowground. Carter's definitely did design andmake the full-height, large-scale tilepanel showing the brewing processwhich was installed in Truman's BlackEagle Brewery, Spitalfields, around 1965.The panel, possibly still extant, was oneof a series which Carter's produced forindustrial customers in the 1960s.33

During the early 1970s, tiles produced byHereford Tiles Limited were used onMitchells & Butlers' and Ansell's pubs inthe Birmingham area.34 The onset ofmass pub refurbishments, carried out bythe remaining large industrial-scale brew-ers from the late 1970s onward, resultedin a fetish for neo-Victorian style pubscomplete with new versions of Victorian-style tiling; during the 1990s, H. & E.Smith's Britannic Works at Hanley pro-duced ceramic brewery logo plaques forthis market, while Shaws of Darwen wereinvolved with the restoration of severalfaience pub facades. The popularity ofretro-styling has even induced somebrewers to return to old methods of visu-

al identification within the pub. TheHartlepool brewers Cameron's (owned byWolverhampton & Dudley Breweries)now brand their pubs as sellingCameron's Strongarm by means of alarge tiled pictorial panel, showing 'oldeworlde' figures, set just inside theentrance; the Hop & Friar in Shrewsburyhas had this treatment. This rather bringspub ceramics full circle within the lasthalf-century, as Cameron's was a cus-tomer of Carter's - buying patterned walltiles and a 'Cameron's' mosaic floor - forthe Spotted Cow, West Hartlepool, in1954.

Another interesting modern ceramicoccurrence was instigated by EldridgePope, well known both for their ornamen-tal Dorchester Brewery and their oftendecorative tied estate - the BranksomeArms in Bournemouth is an especiallygood example of their houses, builtaround 1909 and displaying the brewerycrest in ceramics by Carter's. In 1986 thebrewery decided to sponsor and build anew railway station for the town; thisaction was commemorated by a hand-painted tile panel sited on the platform ofthe new Dorchester South station.However, this century of ceramic activityhas now probably come to an end, asEldridge Pope ceased to be brewers in1997. Indeed, future connectionsbetween ceramics and brewing may wellrelate only to the industry's history, asshown by the inclusion of images ofbreweries in the Wrexham millennium tilemural; the town was once the brewingcapital of Wales, the Burton upon Trent ofthe Principality.35


Conclusion

Around the end of the nineteenth century,brewers tended to have a rather dismis-sive attitude towards the architecturalmerits of their breweries. The proprietorof Edward Winch & Sons' ChathamBrewery felt it important to have his com-plete estate of public houses pho-tographed - but not his brewery.36 In fact,despite their only grudging interest in theappearance of breweries, brewers -through their architects or engineers -made an effort to produce attractiveindustrial buildings. In some cases, forinstance Eldridge Pope of Dorchester,the remit to design decorative buildingsappears to have run throughout the com-pany, whether brewery or estate wasunder consideration. This example is par-ticularly unusual as south-west breweriesin general tended towards the less deco-rative, perhaps because of the functionalinfluence of the Bristol brewers' engi-neers. In Scotland, the brewers' architectPeter Lyle Henderson was highly influen-tial; he produced several eye-catchingbreweries, sometimes using the ScottishBaronial style, and also designed manyturn-of-the-century pubs. He was also anenthusiastic user of tiles, including picto-rial panels, in public houses.

It is clear that personal influence, whetherthat of brewer or architect, had much todo with the final appearance of buildings,in what was a conservative, largely fami-ly-run industry. To look at the pub orbrewery was to be presented with animage created by the brewer - almost,

indeed, of the brewer. Economics alsoplayed a part; when the use of ceramicsbecame more expensive, after the firstworld war, trademark plaques rather thanwhole facades became the norm. In addi-tion, architects probably had more influ-ence over the pub design process fromthe inter-war years onward than they hadbeen able to exert in the early 1900s,when ceramics manufacturers and tilers -almost by default - were in control, due tothe nature of the manufacturing process.Long-term relationships between brew-ers, architects and ceramics manufactur-ers were not uncommon, with Carter's,Doulton and (later) Shaws being the mostimportant manufacturers, although Maw,Minton Hollins and Craven Dunnillbecome more significant the further norththe location of the pub or brewery.37

Because of the paucity of records relatingto pub and brewery design in both indus-tries, more detailed conclusions are diffi-cult to draw; however, it is likely thatsome of the many now-demolished brew-eries also used ceramic decoration. Localrelationships between brewer and ceram-ics manufacturers produced local stylesfor the 'local', but it is certain that theinnovatory capabilities of the ceramicindustry were crucial in creating the time-less image of the British public house.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the follow-ing for their help in the preparation of thispaper: the School of Art and Design,University of Wolverhampton; the


Manifold Trust; the ScouloudiFoundation, in association with theInstitute of Historical Research; thePilgrim Trust; the Waterfront Museum,Poole; the Ironbridge Gorge MuseumTrust Library; the Shropshire Recordsand Research Centre; the WhitbreadArchives; Shaws of Darwen; PennyBeckett, Mary and John Bentley, ChrisBlanchett, Tony Herbert, Kathy Huggins,Willem Irik, Biddy Macfarlane, TonyPage, Helen Ross, Judy Rudoe, AlanSwale, Hans van Lemmen, Harry vanRoyen and Rob Whatley. An earlierversion of this paper was read at theseminar preceding the AnnualConference of the Association forIndustrial Archaeology, Chatham, 10th

September 1999.

This articles was first published in theJournal of the Tiles and ArchitecturalCeramics Society, volume 8, 2000, pp26-36.

Notes and references

1. Lemmen, H. van, (1997) Delftware Tiles,Laurence King: London, p 112.

2. Ibid p 123; the panel is now held by theMuseum of London.

3. The Builder, vol 8, 23rd March 1850, p141. Although the tiles are described asencaustic, this appears to be used as a gen-eral term for tiling; the artist was E.F.Lambert. No manufacturer is mentioned, butgiven the early date, Minton would be astrong possibility. However, as the billiardroom was in a London tavern, perhaps

Doulton of Lambeth is more likely; it wouldthen be an early example of Doulton's workfor the licensed trade, which eventuallybecame a highly significant part of their over-all production.

4. Pearson, L.F. (2000) British Breweries: AnArchitectural History, Hambledon Press:London, p 66.

5. The Builder, vol 30, 11th May 1872, p370; Brewers' Journal, vol 11, Jan 1875, p 10.

6. Atkinson, F., (1974) The industrial archae-ology of North-East England, David &Charles: Newton Abbot, pp 126, 303.

7. The Builder, vol 32, 7th Feb 1874, pp109-11.

8. Atterbury, P. and Irvine, L., (1979) TheDoulton Story, Royal Doulton Tableware:Stoke on Trent:, pp 45 and 94. One tile panelat the Watney family home is described asshowing a view of Doulton's Lambeth workswith Watney's brewery to the rear, as seenfrom the Thames. Since the brewery was inPimlico, this clearly required the use of muchartistic licence; on the panel itself, the hand-some facade of Doulton's is easily recognis-able, but the brewery is merely a clutch ofchimneys. Was this a joke at Watney'sexpense? Regarding the supply of ceramicware to the brewing industry, Wedgwood alsoproduced jugs and pub ware, for the brewersWorthingtons and Mitchells & Butlers (seeBatkin, M. (1982) Wedgwood Ceramics 1846-1959, London: Richard Dennis, p216), whilean 1892 advertisement for the tile manufac-turers Woolliscroft's of Stoke-on-Trent offeredperforated malt kiln tiles, as used by the sub-stantial maltings at Sawbridgeworth,Hertfordshire.

9. Bradford, W., (1891) 'Notes on breweryconstruction', Transactions of the Institute ofBrewing, 4, pp 109-138.


10. The Builder, vol 44, 23rd June 1883, p844. Nothing is known of the firm Brown'sapart from this reference.

11. Ruabon is likely to be the source of theterracotta used at Cain's given its proximityand the specific colour of the terracotta. Ofthe two large Ruabon firms who might havecarried out this prestigious contract, Dennisand Edwards, no mention of Cain's occurs inthe catalogues of Henry Dennis; it thereforeseems likely that the terracotta was manufac-tured by J.C. Edwards.

12. Austwick, J. and Austwick, B., (1980)The Decorated Tile, Pitman House Limited:London, pp 73-4.

13. Building News, vol 51, 2nd July 1886, p13. See also Irvine, L., (1981) 'TheDecorative Spirit,’ Connoisseur, vol 208, Dec,pp 273-5.

14. Pearson, L.F., (1989) The NorthumbrianPub: An Architectural History, Sandhill Press:Warkworth, pp 81-2, 123, 126.

15. Davison, A., (1992) 'A Genuine andSuperior Article: the Last Two Centuries ofBrewing in York', York Historian, vol 10, pp31-51, points out on p 48 that Hotham's ofYork, which changed its name to theTadcaster Tower Brewery in 1882, used asmall range of pub facade types for its Yorkestate, including a model with a brown glazedtile ground floor. However, it is not clear whenthis type was first put up.

16. Crawford, A., Dunn, M. and Thorne, R.,(1986) Birmingham Pubs 1880-1939, AlanSutton: Gloucester, 1986, p 28.

17. Elwall, R., (1983) Bricks and Beer -English Pub Architecture 1830-1939, BritishArchitectural Library: London, p 13.

18. Stratton, M., (1986) 'The TerracottaIndustry: its Distribution, ManufacturingProcesses and Products', Industrial

Archaeology Review, 8, 2, pp 194-214. 19. Shropshire Records & Research Centre

(SRRC), Maw & Co, Contract Jobs AbstractBook No 10, 6001/5241.

20. Patent No. 23,230, 4th December 1893,J.W. Cockrill and H.L. Doulton.

21. Brewers' Journal, vol 9, June 1873, p135.

22. Eley, P. and Riley, R.C. (1991) ‘Thedemise of demon drink? Portsmouth Pubs,’1900-1950, Portsmouth Papers 58,Portsmouth City Council, p 8.

23. Pearson, L.F. (1991) 'Maw & Co,Conway & Co and the pubs of Manchester',Glazed Expressions, 22, p 10; SRRC, Maw &Co Abstract Book No 28, 6001/5242.

24. Pears, A. (1989) Maw and Company1900-1910, dissertation submitted forDiploma in Industrial Archaeology, IronbridgeInstitute, University of Birmingham,September, p26.

25. Aslet, C. (1984) 'Beer and Skittles in theImproved Public House', Thirties SocietyJournal, 4, pp 2-9.

26. Alderton, D. and Booker, J. (1980)Batsford guide to the industrial archaeologyof East Anglia, Batsford: London, p 142.

27. Carter Archive Catalogue, WaterfrontMuseum, Poole, 3C Industrial (Brewery) - 1.

28. O'Connor, F., (1995) A Pub on EveryCorner - Volume 1: Liverpool City Centre,Bluecoat Press: Liverpool, p 19.

29. Pickett, C., (1989) Brewing and Pubs,Powerhouse Museum: Sydney. From theearly 1900s, Australian hotels often includeda public bar with a heavily tiled interior;Denne, D. (1991) 'British Tiles in theAntipodes: The context of 19th and 20th

Century Decorative Tiling in Australia andNew Zealand', paper given at the TilesConference, Institute of Advanced


Architectural Studies, University of York, 30th

October - 2nd November. 30. Irik, W. (1999) personal communication,

17th August.31. Carter Archive Catalogue, Waterfront

Museum, Poole, 3C Industrial (Brewery) - 1.32. Carter Archive Catalogue, Waterfront

Museum, Poole, 3D Health and Recreation(Public Houses) - 7.

33. Uncatalogued photograph in CarterArchive, Waterfront Museum, Poole.

34. Hereford Ceramic Tiles, (1973)Publication 118, Hereford Tiles Limited:Hereford.

35. Hampson, P., (2000) 'A Millennium TileMural at Wrexham', Glazed Expressions, 40,pp 8-9.

36. Page, T., personal communication, 3rd

June 1991. There are also instances where

every dray horse has been photographed, butnone of the brewery workers.

37. With reference to Maw's, it would beinteresting to know if the brewers' consultingengineer George Maw Johnson was any rela-tion to the Maws of the ceramics firm. MawJohnson, the eldest son of a Canterbury brew-er, began work in Belgium in 1890, becomingfamous there and in France as a brewingwriter and publisher of the highly regarded LePetit Journal du Brasseur. George MawJohnson died in 1928, but his Journal remainsthe official publication of the BelgianConfederation of Brewers. See Perrier-Robert, A. and Fontaine, C., (1996) Belgiumby Beer, Beer by Belgium, Schortgen:Luxembourg, p190; and Royen, H. van, per-sonal communication, 14th June 1999.

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