Highgate & Walsall Brewery Co. Ltd Round Copper

Highgate & Walsall Brewery Co. Ltd copper tray dating from the 1930s.

The Highgate Brewery

The Highgate Brewery was built between 1895 and 1898 by James A Fletcher. The site, on Sandymount Road in Walsall, was chosen because of a supply of pure brewing water, rich in iron, from a bore hole at the end of the road.
The Company was registered as the Highgate-Walsall Brewery Co. Ltd in 1898.
Brewing began in 1899 to supply mild and old ales to the ten public houses that were owned by Fletcher Brothers.
The first two employees were Fred Broadstock, the brewer, and Bill Jones, the sales representative and drayman.
In the first part of the 20th century the Company acquired a few small local breweries.
The Company purchased the Oak Inn, with a small home brewhouse, on Green Lane, Walsall, in 1903, followed by the Royal Exchange, with another small home brewhouse, in 1904. Yardley & Ingram's brewery of Bloxwich, was acquired around the same time.
By 1914, Agnes Mountfield became the first female head brewer in the country.
In 1919 the brewery was enlarged.
In the early 1920s a bottling plant was opened at the Highgate Brewery, and it began producing a range of bottled wines, spirits, and beers, including pale, mild, and old ales. Guinness was also bottled for resale in the Company's pubs.
In 1924 James A Fletcher's Highgate-Walsall Brewery Ltd, and the Town Brewery of John Lord, merged, and acquired the businesses of Arthur Beebee Ltd, with its Malt Shovel Brewery and 7 public houses, to form Walsall Breweries Proprietary Ltd.
All three breweries were located in Walsall, and production was concentrated at Highgate's Walsall Brewery, after the new Company was formed.
During the 1930s the business continued to expand.

Mitchells & Butlers Ltd Ownership

By 1939 the firm owned over 30 public houses and employed 65 staff.
That year, Mitchells & Butlers Ltd acquired the Company, its Walsall Brewery, and its public houses.
Initially. Mitchells & Butlers Ltd decided to close the Walsall Brewery, as was its practice for any brewery acquisition, but the Second World War intervened.
Wartime rationing meant the brewery qualified for vital extra rationed supplies, and brewing continued at the site.
The bottling plant did close, and Mitchells & Butlers limited the beer range to two, mild ale, and a seasonal old ale.
The last bitter was brewed in 1940, and all bottling was transferred to Mitchell & Butler's Cape Hill Brewery.
During the war, the Auxilliary Fire Service was stationed at the brewery, and mild proved an extremely popular drink.
When in 1960, William Butler & Co. Ltd of Wolverhampton, was acquired by Mitchells & Butlers Ltd, the distribution arm of the Walsall business was transferred to Wolverhampton, and the production of Highgate Old Ale ceased.
In 1961 Mitchells & Butlers Ltd merged with Bass, Ratcliff & Gretton Ltd to form Bass, Mitchells & Butlers Ltd.
By the early 1980s lighter bitter ales and lager, had become more fashionable, resulting in capacity and labour reductions at the Walsall Brewery, which solely brewed mild ale.

The Brewery's Last Years

The brewery was sold by Bass plc as a management buy-out in 1995.
The Company merged with Aston Manor Brewery in 2000.
The business was sold to a little-known pub group, Global Star, in 2007.
Sadly, the new venture was short-lived, and in 2009, the Company, now called Highgate & Davenports Ltd, went into administration.
Despite numerous attempts to sell the site it still remains standing and unsold.