The Brewery History Society: Breweries
Nottinghamshire - Daybrook, Mansfield Road: Home Brewery Co Ltd (closed 1996)
Home Brewery Co Ltd, Mansfield Road, Daybrook, Notts. Registered in August 1890 to acquire the business formerly owned by John Robinson. Acquired by Scottish & Newcastle Breweries in July 1986 with 447 tied houses. The brewery was closed in 1996. Most of the site has been redeveloped as a supermarket, but the 1930s-1940s office block fronting Mansfield Road is retained.
On each side of the tower a large sign 'HOME OF THE BEST'. When the brewery was operating these signs read 'HOME - OF THE BEST - ALES' - all the lettering was neon-illuminated, and each line lit up in sequence. The whole building, and the signs, are listed.
Reference:
A Century of British Brewers Plus - 1890 to 2004. Brewery History Society, 2005.
Ray Teece provides the following images, taken in May 2008:
These panels are repeated along the front of the building:
The building was listed, grade 2, in 1993, and the following is the listing description:
Home Ales Brewery Offices and attached railing:
Brewery office building and water tower. 1936. Designed for Home Ales Brewery by T. Cecil
Howitt. Steel framed with brick cladding with ashlar dressings. Main west front has central very
large ashlar faced square arched lorry entrance, with ornate iron gates with gilded lettering
eitherside are single panel doorways with octagonal bronze lamps above. Over the arch in raised
lettering "HOME BREWERY COMPANY LIMITED". Above a large Diocletian window
with brick mullions and metal framed casements. Above a very tall square tower, slightly
battered with pairs of stripped pilaster buttresses on each face with a small pantile hood, above
a tall brick parapet with ashlar coping. The side faces have raised lettering "HOME OF THE
BEST ALES". Eitherside 12 bay flanking 2 storey office wings with a deep basement faced in
ashlar. Above both floors have windows with metal frames set back with painted relief panels
between, and flanked by plain brick piers and continuous ashlar cill band. Above a tall ashler
parapet with ashlar coping. Above a set back attic storey faced in ashlar with 4 metal frame
windows to each side with banded ashlar parapet. At the front to the street a low brick wall
with ashlar parapet with iron railings and piers.
