Sometimes, when I have time on my hands in a familiar place (or a place I think of as familiar) I give myself the simple task of walking around and trying to find some feature of the townscape or architecture that I’d not noticed before. Often, small gems are to found down alleys or in side streets I have no other reason to visit; sometimes it’s just a question of going a little further along a main street than I’ve done previously; and sometimes, of course, it’s a matter of looking a little harder in places I’ve been many times before, because we all miss things and we’re likely to overlook even the obvious when we think we know a place well.
In Evesham the other day, I decided to try some side streets, and it wasn’t long before I found this stone sign in a brick wall on a corner in Bewdley Street. The small building to which it’s attached doesn’t look industrial – I’d easily have mistaken it for part of a house. But clearly there was once a brewery here, a local concern that closed some time during the last century. The invaluable Brewery History Society website doesn’t say much about it, apart from noting the sign and adding that the other brewery buildings have been redeveloped.
I fancied I saw the remains of a polychrome brick tower not far away, with a factory-like building nearby: could this have been part of the old brewery? I think, looking online, that these buildings actually belonged to another company, probably brewers Sladden and Collier’s. Like many towns, Evesham had several breweries, all of which have gone, prey to takeovers or closed for some other reason. I cherish signs like this, faded and damaged but still in situ, as reminders of these forgotten industries, and of times when many trades were largely locally based. One of the cheering things about modern life (yes, there are a few!) is that parts of the brewing industry have again become more localised and diverse. Long may this last.
