The Plough Brewery

WANDSWORTH ROAD SW8 1. (west side) 5023 No 516 ('The Plough Brewery') ) TQ 2876 10/1045 TQ 2875 15/1045 22.5.74

II GV

1. Former Plough Brewery. 1868, built on site of earlier brewery. Now in use as offices and warehouses but former name reapplied over entrance. Main front of 4 storeys and basement, 3 wide bays with windows grouped 3, 2 and 3 on each floor. Yellowish brick with stone dressings. Fairly low-pitched hipped slate roof. Stone cornice above course of diagonal bricks. Sash windows set in deep narrow recesses running through 2 floors, the upper ones segmental, the lower round-arched with keystones overlapping second floor band. Some rebuilding at second floor centre. Central carriage archway has rusticated stone jambs and voussoirs. Modern doors and radial fanlight. Three-storey and basement right extension with added modern fourth storey. Thick cast iron area railings, with twist sections, have square piers with cable mouldings and monogram of brewer, Thomas Woodward, in heads. Central double and side single gates of same pattern. Four-bay return to Silverthorne Road, and beyond this a tall one storey wall with arcaded basement windows; these belong to the undercroft beneath the inner courtyard, a large groin-vaulted chamber of 5 by 6 aisles, the vaults supported on low, thick round piers with Romanesque scalloped capitals. Inner courtyard walls remain as do buildings to west, although the north (stable) building was destroyed by fire. Within the west building, slender cast iron columns with lotus capitals support upper floor. Wood framed roof has queen post trusses with raised centres and bracing struts to principals and centre. In west side of front range a rectangular stairwell has cantilevered staircase, with twist cast iron balusters and cast iron handrail, running from ground floor down to sub-basement, which has segmental and barrel-vaulted passages. See also entry for outer courtyard walls under Peardon Street.

Listing NGR: TQ2897775995