City & St. Anne’s (Norman & Pring) Ltd Round Tin

City & St. Anne's (Norman & Pring) Ltd tin tray dating from around 1960.

St. Anne's Well Brewery Co. Ltd

Messers. Harding and Richards were brewers at the Swan Inn on Cowick Street in Exeter, in 1819.
They moved to the Barnstaple Inn, on Lower North Street, in 1828, where they brewed their beers.
Richards also owned a malthouse on the city wall, in Batholomew Street, which supplied malt to the brewery.
The firm took on another partner in 1875 when it traded as Harding, Richards & Thomas.
Growing markets required a new brewery and, in 1878, Harding, Richards, & Thomas built a modern brewery in the old stable yard of the Barnstaple Inn. The brewery also had its own siding from the railway.
The Company was registered as the St. Anne's Well Brewery Co. Ltd in 1889.
It was named after St. Anne's Well, the water supply for the brewery, which was piped by gravity alongside the London and South Western railway line.

Norman & Pring Ltd City Brewery

Evidence suggests that the business was founded in Exeter as early as 1700.
Richard Denshaw built a cellar and warehouse beside a brewhouse in 1760.
Richard Denshaw joined in partnership with Samuel White in 1786, and over the next few years the brewery took on other partners.
The first lease to mention the City Brewery was dated 1801.
In 1833 the City Brewery acquired the St. Thomas Brewery and malthouse of Opie Smith & Edward at Shooting Marsh Stile, situated on the opposite bank of the River Exe.
Brewing ceased there in 1850 when it was refurbished to increase the firm's malting capacity.
In 1834 the City Brewery was run by the partnership of Benjamin Slater, Thomas Owen senior, and Thomas Owen junior.
In 1844 the Exeter Brewery in Mermaid Yard was acquired by the Slater and Owens partnership.
In 1845 Slater sold his interest in the brewery to John Evomy Norman. Walter Pring became a partner of the business in 1865, forming Norman & Pring.
The Company was registered, with its City Brewery, in 1911 as Norman & Pring Ltd.
In the 1920s, Norman & Pring Ltd improved its bottling facilities on Commercial Road, installing glass-lined conditioning tanks and building a new bottling store. This enabled the Company to increase its bottled beer trade.
Many of Exeter's Mills were driven by water wheels installed in the leats. The City Brewery was no exception, as its machinery was driven by two water wheels. In 1929 one of its wheels was replaced by a turbine and generator, the other wheel continued operating until 1953.
In 1937 the Company installed the first automatic bottling plant in the country.

City & St. Anne's (Norman & Pring) Ltd

Norman & Pring's City Brewery, and the St. Anne's Well Brewery Co. Ltd, partially merged in 1943 and traded as City & St. Anne's (Norman & Pring) Ltd.
Both companies were run separately until 1956.
Norman & Pring's old malthouse on Shooting Marsh Stile closed in 1949, becoming a bonded warehouse.
In 1956 brewing ceased at the City Brewery when production was concentrated at the St. Anne's Well Brewery, although bottling continued there until 1968, when the brewery burnt down.
City & St. Anne's Ltd, with 102 tied houses, was acquired by Whitbread & Co. Ltd in 1962, and the business was merged with Starkey, Knight & Ford Ltd in 1964.
Brewing eventually ceased at the St. Anne's Well Brewery in 1968.
The site was redeveloped for commercial and residential use.

The Creedy Valley Cider Co.

A trading agreement was entered into with The Creedy Valley Cider Co. of Crediton to supply cider to the Company's outlets.
I am unsure as to when the trading agreement was entered into but it was most likely at the end of the 1950s.

This is the only tray in the collection which advertises a brewer and a cider producer.
The manufacturer's mark states - Hancor Mitcham