Put an artificial skating rink in the Square, glue a few rooks up in trees and invest in a couple of tons of artificial snow and tourists will flock to Bruegeland in Dorset
Posts from the “Featured” Category
I’m looking forward to this very much indeed. How much mischief will Proboscis make at Burton Bradstock?
The new Eggardon & Colmer’s View website includes a tremendous picture of Colmer’s Hill by Higher Eype photographer Andy White, one of the best images of this famous West Dorset landmark I’ve ever seen.
Brian Wood at Palmers Brewery in Bridport. His lorry has done more than 1.5 million miles. Above Brian's head is the trapdoor that leads though into Palmers' malt loft.
THIRTY years ago one of the unsung heroes of British brewing began criss-crossing the country with sacks of malt.
Brian Wood started carrying malt for Hugh Baird and Sons at Station Maltings in Witham in Essex in the Autumn of 1981. When Baird’s got taken over in the mid-1990s, he set up on his own.
I’ve met him a couple of times at Palmers Brewery in Bridport, where he’s been delivering malt since the early 1980s.
He’s a fine man, as I hope comes through in the video that I made about him for the Palmers Brewery YouTube channel.
Here, also, is a link to a story written about Brian Wood and Palmers.
What that story doesn’t contain is a list of all the UK breweries that Brian has been to.
It’s an evocative litany, so here it is. Fifty-nine different brewers, 63 separate breweries, some of them now shut for many years. Morrells’ Lion Brewery, for example, was converted into ‘luxury apartments’. Julia Hanson’s in Dudley was knocked down to make way for a Netto supermarket, turned this summer into an Asda.
- Whitbread (Sheffield, Cheltenham, Salford)
- Boddingtons (Manchester)
- Joseph Holt (Manchester)
- JW Lees (Manchester)
- Timothy Taylor (Keighley)
- Samuel Smith (Tadcaster)
- Bass (Burton)
- McMullens (Hertford)
- Julia Hanson (Dudley)
- Banks (Wolverhampton)
- Hardy Hanson (Kimberley)
- Brains (Cardiff)
- Buckleys (Llanelli)
- Felinfoel (Dyfed)
- Wadworth (Devizes)
- Hall & Woodhouse (Blandford)
- Palmers Brewery (Bridport)
- Otter Brewery (Blackdown Hills)
- Butcombe (Blagdon)
- Smiles (Bristol)
- Hook Norton (Oxon)
- Morrells (Oxford)
- Fullers (Chiswick )
- Tring (Hertford)
- Adnams (Southwold)
- Tolly’s (Ipswich)
- Harveys (Lewes)
- Hepworths (Horsham)
- King & Barnes (Horsham)
- Hull Brewery
- Batemans (Wainfleet)
- Robinsons (Stockport))
- Thwaites (Blackburn)
- Jennings (Cockermouth)
- Moorhouse (Burnley)
- Higsons (Liverpool)
- Burtonwood Brewery
- Everards (Leicester and Burton on Trent)
- Marstons (Burton on Trent)
- Ind Coope (Burton on Trent)
- Castlemaine (Wrexham)
- Oldham Brewery
- Hart Brewery (Preston)
- Mitchells (Lancaster)
- Vaux (Sunderland & Sheffield)
- Federation (Newcastle)
- Courage (Bristol & Reading)
- Crouch Brewery (Essex)
- Gales (Horndean)
- Devenish (Redruth)
- St Austell (Cornwall)
- Halls (Oxford)
- Tisbury Brewery (Wiltshire)
- Ringwood Brewery (Hampshire)
- Shepherd Neame (Faversham)
- Trough Brewery (Idle)
- Brakspears (Henley on Thames)
- Pilgrim (Reigate)
- Mendip Brewery (Somerset)
Imagine going to the Trough Brewery at Idle for the first time! And seeing this, when you got there.
Nowadays Brian delivers mostly to Palmers in Dorset, Arkell’s in Swindon, Felinfoel near Llanelli, Harveys in Lewes, Elgood’s in Wisbech, Wadworth in Devizes and Fuller’s in Chiswick.
Good reason, I’d say, to favour those seven brewers.
Ancient landscapes and archaeological remains have fascinated Amanda Wallwork since childhood. Her images are intended to awake instinctual longings.
The strangeness and beauty of Abbotsbury Subtropical Gardens challenge “the sadness of our climate”. A look back at Cyril Connolly’s trip to “the gardens of the West”.
“The mighty roar of London’s traffic” is to be drowned out by the crashing of Dorset surf on Chesil Beach.