Beacon Hotel And Sarah Hughes Brewery

This combined public house and brewery on Bilston Street was initially built around 1851 and altered in the late 19th century and around 1921. The building is constructed of red brick, partially colourwashed, with a tile roof.

Plan and Structure

The hotel has two storeys and a cellar, while the brewery has three storeys. The hotel fronts onto Bilston Street, with a ground floor plan consisting of a central corridor flanked by four principal bar areas: the Snug, Tap Room, Lounge and Family Room, plus a Private room for staff.

Exterior

The street front presents a three-bay, near-symmetrical elevation in colourwashed brick with pilaster buttresses at the corners. The doorway sits slightly right of centre, featuring an arched fanlight and wrought iron lamp bracket. Flanking the entrance are tripartite sash windows with painted stone sills and bracketed heads. The first floor has three four-pane sash windows. Paired chimneys rise from each gable end.

The east flank has a ground floor extension to the right and four ground floor windows with bracketed heads. The west front has two sash windows on each floor. A rear wing extends at left, in line with the gabled flank, connecting to the brewery and marking the height of its original roof before an extra floor was added in the 1920s. This wing features a canted bay window on the ground floor, added in the 1970s. To the left stands a late 20th-century conservatory with canted end and arched lights, and beyond that the lavatories and barrel store. All these single-storey structures stand in front of the brewery tower. The north face has a single-storey addition with a canted bay at left, added in the 1970s but designed to appear mid-Victorian.

Hotel Interior

The central passage has a quarry-tiled floor and an egg-and-dart cornice. The closed-string staircase features square balusters and a turned newel. The off-sales hatch in the west wall has a panelled apron and a stained glass internal light above the panelled hatch.

The Tap Room is nearly square with a chimneybreast centred on the east wall and the door opposite. The fireplace range is a late 20th-century import. A plain wooden bench surrounds the lower walls, appearing to be an original fitting, and the room has matchboard panelling to the walls forming a bench back.

The Snug has a similar arrangement with chimney breast opposite the door and upholstered, fixed benches running around the walls. The 19th-century marble fire surround is a 20th-century replacement of the plainer, mid-20th-century tiled surround shown in photographs.

The Lounge has matchboard panelling to the walls which is apparently original. Two slate fireplaces with cast iron inserts were brought from upstairs rooms and installed in the 1970s. Upholstered benches around the walls are shown in situ in early 20th-century photographs. The floor has linoleum tiles and a border which appear to date from the 1920s.

The Private Room has a wooden fire surround with tiled slips dating from the 1920s. The kitchen has fitted cupboards and a sink from the late 19th or 20th century. The present Family Room was formed from a courtyard area in the late 20th century, which was roofed and given a wall to its northern end with a door to the garden and canted window in imitation of a mid-19th-century arrangement.

On the upper floors the plan remains little altered, with wallpapers and borders dating from the 1920s. Beneath the pub, the original layout of cellars remains largely undisturbed, with 19th-century brick barrel platforms running around the walls of one room.

The Brewery

The brewery is built in line with the rear wing of the pub and joined to it to form one building. Beer making at the Sarah Hughes Brewery depends on a gravity method with tanks arranged over three floors and a cellar. Water is heated to boiling point in the hot liquor tank at the top of the building. This water is mixed in the mash tun with malt taken from the grist case. After mixing it is sieved through the under back and falls down to the copper on the floor below where it is boiled and hops are added. From there it is run off into the hop back and cooled, then falls down to the fermenting vats on the floor below. Yeast is added and the brew is left to ferment for six days. After skimming, the beer is run off into the racking tank and thence to the casks in the cellar below.

Brewery Exterior

The east front opens onto a small yard and has two sets of double doors to the ground floor. Above are two cambered-headed windows to the first and second floors. There is a single bay to the west side, with a round-arched metal-framed window to the second floor, and the north gable end has a similar round-headed metal window at this height. A louvred vent sits on the ridge, and there is a stack to the centre of the north gable.

Brewery Interior

The top floor, added in the 1920s, has a square grist case with tapered profile clad in matchboarding. The mash tun is of stainless steel and is a 20th-century addition with wooden palings to the side. The hot liquor tank is encased in brick and now heated by a gas burner, but the original furnace is preserved. At the south end of the floor is an enclosed sugar store with boarded and glazed doors, built in the late 20th century.

The copper, set in a tiled brick surround, has its mouth on the top floor and the body is set on the middle floor, where heating is provided by gas burners, although the original furnace is still in situ. The present hop back is a 20th-century stainless steel tank. There is an original fireplace with wood surround and cast iron grate to the east wall. The ground floor contains the racking tanks and fermenting vats, which are 20th century.

History

The brewery and public house were first granted a licence in 1852 and the buildings appear to have been erected at around that date, facing onto a turnpike road. Despite being called a hotel, the business operated principally as a public house. The Carter and Baker families owned the business until 1921 when it was bought at auction by Sarah Hughes. The following year the licence was issued in her name and she remained the owner until 1951, when the business passed to her son and then in turn to her grandson, John Hughes.

Sarah Hughes undertook alterations to the buildings, including the addition of a third floor to the brewery block to create a gravity system of liquid transfer in a tower brewery. At the same time the plan of the rooms in the public house were rationalised by building a screened bar area with hatches which served both front and back bars on the west side (Snug and Lounge), and off sales from the central passageway. Otherwise the basic structure was little altered, although details such as fire surrounds and wall panelling were changed in the mid-20th century.

Brewing stopped on site in 1958 but was started again in 1987 by John Hughes, using traditional methods and equipment where these were consistent with current legislation. In the 1970s an attempt was made to strip out the later alterations and return the building to its mid-Victorian appearance, and some fittings were brought in and others were re-arranged. A single-storey extension was built to the north and west in the late 20th century, including a conservatory and internal lavatories and a barrel store.

The building was designated at Grade II because the combination of a public house and brewery building, both originating in the mid-19th century and surviving in largely original condition, is rare. The last significant alteration to the core of the building happened in the early 1920s, and the core plan of both brewery and public house contains much fabric and many fixtures which can be dated to the mid-19th century when the building was erected. Although there have been alterations, these have been carried out in sympathy with the existing fabric and do not detract from the building's special interest.