Devenish & Co. Ltd
Devenish & Co. Ltd, Hope Square, Weymouth, Dorset
Devenish & Co. Ltd, Chapel Street, Redruth, Cornwall
It is thought that brewing has taken place on this site since the 13th century. The current enterprise was founded in 1742 by the Fowler and Flew families, and acquired by William Devenish in 1824. Registered in 1889 as J A Devenish & Co Ltd and name was changed as above 1965.
- Mallett's Brewery of Truro was acquired in 1921.
- Carne's Falmouth Brewery was also acquired in 1921 and brewing ceased in 1926.
- Aylwin & Snowden of Exeter was acquired in 1925.
- In 1934, they acquired the Redruth Brewery Co. Ltd. For information on Redruth, see: Cornish Brewery Co. Ltd.
- They acquired the adjacent Groves & Sons Ltd, Hope Brewery, Weymouth in 1960 with 115 public houses.
330 tied houses. Brewing ceased at Weymouth in November 1985 and was concentrated at Redruth as the Redruth Brewery (1742) Ltd. The company closed the Redruth brewery (which became independent) in 1991, and became a retail pub company. The tied house estate was acquired by Greenall Whitley & Co. Ltd in 1993.
Courtesy Paul Hathaway:
Weymouth Harbour, taken from a ship on the east side of the Harbour looking towards towards Hope Square and the Devenish and Groves Breweries. Hope Square is to the rear of the buildings in the dead centre of the picture. The white building on the right of the is the Old Rooms Inn, while the building with the two cream porticos is the Cove Inn, both now closed. The Old Rooms was one of the last pubs to be gas lit.
Various views of the Weymouth brewery
The BHS explored the surviving buildings of the former Devenish and Groves breweries in October 2021
The Redruth Brewery in 1977. Courtesy Roy Denison
Labels, advertising, etc
Ordnance Survey map extracts from 1863. "Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland" http://maps.nls.uk/index.html: