Styring & Co's Poole Brewery - by Peter Moynihan
Styring & Co's Poole Brewery
By Peter Moynihan
(From Brewery History Society Journal, no.50, December 1986)
The Poole Brewery in Towngate Street was, according to Styring's adverts and letterheads, established in 1795. Certainly by 1792, Joseph King was a tenant of the Corporation at the Angel Inn, Market Street, whilst also owning the Bulls Head in the High Street. It must be assumed therefore that he brewed at one or both of these sites for he did not acquire the Towngate Street property with its vacant malt house until 1818 whereupon he erected a new brewery. This was managed by his two sons Joseph II (then aged 26) and James (22) from the outset.
By 1827 they had three tied houses and, five years later in 1832, they acquired Daw's Brewery in Christchurch. This had been in existence since before 1796 when it was sold by William Wing Mitchell to John Elliott. He in turn sold it in 1814 to Ambrose Daw who took a partner - William Blake. John Daw succeeded to the business during the 1820s and eventually sold out to the King brothers. This side of the business seems to have been promoted to the detriment of the Poole brewery but perhaps the younger brother James, who ran the Christchurch brewery, was just a better businessman. 1845 saw the purchase of the larger Rowden & Co's Mansion Brewery on the opposite side of Christchurch High Street whereupon Davis premises were used solely for malting.
John Cook had erected a new brewery in Dolphin Lane, Christchurch and upon his death in 1793 his widow Suzzanah sold some of the houses to the aforementioned William Mitchell. That the Cooks were of some standing locally is indicated by the fact that one of Cook's executors was George Rose - Secretary of the Treasury, friend of Pitt and the "Old George Rose" castigated by Cobbett. The Mansion Brewery and its remaining houses were sold in 1796 to Sir Samuel Spicer, the Portsmouth distiller. He conveyed the property to his brother John Spicer in 1819 who sold out to John Peerman in 1834. Peerman tried to expand the business but went bankrupt when the Mansion Brewery passed to Henry Rowden around 1840.
Both of the King brothers died in the same year - 1852 - and the two businesses, which had been run fairly autonomously anyway, were finally split up. The Christchurch business passed to Joseph King III, James's son, and it remained in the King family passing to Joseph III's half-brother John King in 1882. John bought out the interests of his brothers and sisters to become sole proprietor before selling out to David Faber of Strong & Co of Romsey in 1891.
Joseph Il kept control of the Poole Brewery until his own death at the end of 1852 when he bequeathed it to Poole solicitor Martin Kemp-Welch. Welch promptly took a partner Frederick Styring, a local farmer who immediately sold off all his farming interests to devote himself to the brewery. The firm traded as Styring & Welch for several years but Frederick Styring soon assumed sole control. He was a shrewd businessman, taking advantage of the explosive development of Bournemouth by establishing a depot there in 1867 from where he distributed not only his own beers but Barclay Perkins, Delafield's Double Stout and Porter and Allsop's East India Pale Ale in bottle and cask to the private trade. Styring lived in some style in the Georgian mansion next to the brewery known as Sir Peter Thompson's house - he even used some of the grounds to further extend the brewery.
George Pope and Robert Walmesley bought the Poole Brewery from Styring in 1879 although they continued to trade as Styring & Co. George Pope was the brother of Edwin and Alfred Pope who owned the Dorchester Brewery which is still, happily, extant [in 1986].
Frederick Styring continued to take an active part in the business life of Poole after selling his eponymous brewery and in 1881 his son, F H S Styring, acquired Jennings & Baker's Marnhull Brewery which then traded as Jennings, Styring & Co. Styring also acquired the Tisbury Steam Brewery at this time and after its destruction by fire in 1885 it was rebuilt as the Wiltshire Brewery. The Marnhull business absorbed Edwin White's brewery in Stalbridge, of which they had been the ground landlords, during the late 1880s becoming Jennings, Styring, White & Co. which concern went on to acquire John Parham & Co's Walton Elm Brewery, Marnhull and its two pubs c.1898.
All of the Styring family's brewing interests were purchased by Eldridge Pope in 1913 at which time they owned or otherwise controlled 36 pubs. Some of these were sold off - Hall & Woodhouse purchased five together with the Marnhull brewery which survives as a private residence. The brewery premises at Tisbury gained a new lease of life in 1980 when the Tisbury Brewery Co Ltd, ambitiously launched with an offer of 125,000 £1 shares, commenced brewing there. After several changes of ownership, the firm was relaunched in 1985 as the Wiltshire Brewing Company Ltd under which name it is still trading [in 1986].
Meanwhile back in Poole in 1882, Pope & Walmersley had the brewery refitted by Messrs Llewellins & James of Bristol and the business prospered until in 1896 Walmesley retired due to his ill-health. He died in the following year, aged just forty.
In 1900 Eldridge Pope acquired a controlling interest and George Pope joined his brothers on the Board of the parent company. Brewing ceased and the brewery was sold off for use as a wholesale grocery warehouse. The bottling stores and maltings continued however until the mid-1950s and the Styrings name was even retained into the 1920s.
The copper of the original 1818 brew house remained in use until the 1930s - the grocers used it to boil hams - and the kiln of the 18th century malt house which predated the brewery on the site was used for curing bacon! The block of buildings to the north of Dear Hay Lane, comprising the malt house, stables, cart-house, porter, spirit and bottling stores and offices was demolished in 1970 and Council flats erected on the site . The southern block survived however with the original 1818 brewhouse, much altered, in use as a timber merchants and the later brewhouse over the yard entrance as a shoe warehouse. The two blocks were connected by a tunnel under the road.
Peter Moynihan
1986