HOMEBREW HERITAGE

Hello again and welcome to part three of Eric Simpson's personal history of his time at Hartley's.  In this last part Eric talks about upgrades to motors, pumps and boilers and  the cost of such maintanance, and we hear a little of the process of replacing himself as Head Brewer, and about the birth of his famous XB. The story ends on a bitter sweet note, as you might expect, but not before Eric has told us a little about the role of the Lancashire Constabulary in testing the strength of a particular brew... https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Y7eMgBLAUEJAJYMcqliXUt7LYJi75nqG?usp=sharing The photograph here comes from Nigel Saul, and shows his workmates Tony Doyle "Alf" Atkinson, Geoff, and Steve Gilpin in the Change Of Bottle shop. Thanks again to Roger Baker and to the Brewing History Society. Remember, if you have stories or photos from your time at the brewery or of members of your family that worked there, we want to see them.  It all helps to k...

Hello, and here we are with part 2 of Hartley's Head Brewer Eric Simpson's personal history of the Brewery, as publsihed in the Brewing History Society Journal in 1992. Eric writes about incidents in the bottling store, light fingered colleagues, dubious personal encounters in the Snipe Inn in Barrow , and the ways in which the workforce  rubbed up against each other in their day to day, including Young Harry Walmsley, Billy Preston and Bob Cloudsdale, seen here in Erics own photograph. We also learn the consequences of  accidently getting cows drunk. Again, the pages are scanned and downloadable on the other end of this link... https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1m6LyfC4cgSxksYEsMjUTd9v6UUdBXlAh?usp=sharing Enjoy your time in Eric's company. Part three next week. Our thanks to Roger Bacon and the Brewing History Society.

Hello again, hope you are all well and in good fettle. This post contains the first episode of Eric Simpson's History of Hartley's Brewery, as published in the Brewery History Journal in 1992. Eric,  pictured here  at an exhibition of Hartleys brews at the Coro, was Head Brewer and creator of Hartleys XB. He mixes  an affectionate and lively look at the  Brewery, its atmosphere and the characters he met there with a chronology from the minute books , and a lot of fact and detail about processes, properties and pubs. Its an interesting read whether you are in the trade, keen on local history or simply in hearing from a interesting and popular man with some stories to tell.  This first piece gives you a bit of background to Brewing in the area, lists of pubs in the early years, the site, and some milestones recorded in the company minutes. There are 3 illustrated installments, I'll be posting them all in turn, and to save your eyes I've  made them d...

We just had our first online Oral History training session with Jenn Bell, on facebook live...Jenn gave us some background , played a variety of interview clips and talked about the value of Oral History techniques to projects like ours.  It's been a really interesting and enjoyable morning with Jenn, Lynne, Jamie, and Cathy, and it was nice to feel a bit joined-up again. We'll be doing another session at 10am next week, let me know if you are keen and I'll get todays notes out to you.

We've been sent some really interesting online material  lately. My good friend - yours too, probably - Roger Baker has put together this  page for the Industrial History of Cumbria site.  After you've read this it well worth going to the home page and looking at the amount of material relating to industry from around the county. I just had a look at some beautiful photographs of Prince Of Wales Dock at Workington and the Bobbin Mill at Stott Park in 1967. The site is a marvellous resource with a sense of the value of the small details in telling a big story. https://www.cumbria-industries.org.uk/hartleys-brewery-ulverston/ Roger has also provided some copies of the Brewery History journal from the 1990's, these have some detailed accounts of life with Hartleys and some photos of the workforce.  I'm scanning them today, so theyll be up soon. Ken Smith of the Brewery History Society was very helpful when we were setting this project up and gave us the ok to us...