Monday 15 March 2021

Formby Old Brewery (part two)

I was still scratching my head about Formby's brewery, when I came across this, much later, article mentioning Brewery Lane:

"Brewery Lane plans:
New row develops

A ROW is developing between Formby's Brewery Lane residents over the council's scheme to widen and pave part of the lane, altering its junction with West Lane. 

The council plans to pipe the ditch in Brewery Lane and provide a footpath in front of the staff homes belonging to St. George's School. The managers of the school requested these measures five years ago. 

The controversy has arisen over the fact that many of the trees and bushes in the lane will have to be removed if the plans are carried through and if the corner is to be improved a group of trees on the south side of the lane will have to be chopped. 

Several of the objectors, who have formed a petition, met with members of the Council to discuss the plans. Mr. A. H. Jones. of 19 Brewery Lane, who was speaking on behalf of the objectors, questioned the need for the scheme at all. He told councillors that the rural setting of Brewery Lane would he ruined. The objectors also want the plans to pipe the ditch in West Lane to be dropped. "
Formby Times - Wednesday 08 August 1973, page 1.

Trees? Houses? That doesn't sound at all like the yard at the side of the Royal Hotel. So I looked up Brewery Lane on Google maps. Sure enough, Brewery Lane is on the northern edge of Formby.

Next step: look up Brewery Lane on the 1892 map. And there it was. A building marked as Old Brewery. It was on a 1927 OS map, too. While the Reciprocity Brewery was no longer noted.

Got it. There were two breweries in Formby. And at one point both were owned by someone called Rimmer. "A Century of British Brewers plus plus" gets the two mixed up, giving the Reciprocity Brewery's address on Liverpool Road for the Old Brewery.

It's easy to see where the Old Brewery stood if you look at the modern arial photo and compare it with the OS map. It's the roughly rectangula rbit about halfway along Brewery Lane, bounded on most sides by trees.

There's that sorted out. Now I need to find out more about the Rimmers. Were Thomas and John related?

2 comments:

The Flat Hat said...

The 1871 census shows a Thomas Rimmer (29) as a common brewer in Liverpool Rd, his father John(59)is at the same address listed as Brewer. In 1861 Thomas Rimmer is shown as a maltster living with his Grandfather Richard Tyrer (70) Brewer and Maltster and another grandson William Tyrer (17) Brewer's Carter, the address is not given. There are lots of Rimmers in Formby mostly farmers, even two called John born around the same time.

qq said...

Anybody else getting a Theakston/Black Sheep vibe?