Brewers Quay

Brewers Quay, Weymouth

Former brewery, now museum and commercial uses including the 'Excise House' public house. The complex dates from 1903–1904 (dated on the base of the stack and principal gable respectively), though it incorporates various late 19th-century ranges including two warehouses and lower ranges to St Leonard's Road and Newberry Gardens. The 1903–1904 range was built to designs of Arthur Kinder for Groves Brewery. Constructed in red engineering brick with cream limestone dressings, engineering blue brick plinths, some rubble and rendered walls, and slate roofs.

The large complex of buildings incorporates the former main brewery and associated support buildings, enclosed by Spring Road to the east, Newberry Gardens to the west, and in part by St Leonard's Road to the north. A glazed link of 1991 faces Hope Square. The main building has a four-storey front in North German Renaissance style to Hope Square, dropping to two storeys to the left and returning by a quadrant corner to Spring Road, where the main circular stack rises. The centre of the block rises to a tower with roof lantern. Behind this are twin warehouse ranges.

The front is in five bays with paired multi-pane casements to cambered heads, separated by broad brick pilasters and continuous moulded stone cornices leading to a broad stepped and shaped gable crowned with a double scroll, dated 1904. The central three bays at ground floor have large display windows with triple lights above a curved transom and a deep plain fascia board. To the right is a wide segmental-arched doorway with brick and stone voussoirs. The gabled roof runs back to the central tower, with lantern retaining three by nine small-pane lights to basket-handle heads. The brick tower has various original small-pane casements to cambered heads. To the right of the 1904 front is a lofty gabled glazed link forming the principal entry to the complex, followed by brick facades (part rebuilt circa 1950 after wartime damage), a further three-storey brick range with arched openings to the upper storeys and a deep-set entrance to the left, and a lower two-storey unit with two-light casements and transom under segmental heads plus a wide entry. This range returns in rubble with stone dressings to Newberry Gardens.

The return to the left reaches a curved quadrant corner with decorative cast-iron cresting, similar in detail to the front but on smaller scale, in six bays with the centre two raised to a scrolled pediment and stepped brick eaves course. To its left the tall circular stack with moulded brick capping and banded upper section rises from an octagonal stepped blue brick base on a high square podium with bold stone cornice. The plinth has a stone panel inscribed 'G S Ltd 1903' (Groves Brewery). A single-storey brick and slate hipped roof range with continuous raised lantern returns to a four-storey warehouse with central projecting gabled hauling-way over two loading doors, flanked by four-pane lights to segmental heads. The east side of this building has an original four-light small-pane dormer window and a plain rendered flank wall. To its left a further warehouse has a shaped parapet to a brick front with cream brick dressings. There are three small attic lights above two deep arches with large casements, tympana and apron panels, and a wide segmental opening to the ground floor. This warehouse has a date stone inscribed 'JC 1879'. A wide rendered three-gabled low range returns to Newberry Gardens with a rubble wall and brick dressings. The centre range has a high front block to Hope Square with a continuous louvred lantern and two brick stacks.

Interiors have been adapted to various new uses, but much original structure remains, including timber queen and king post trusses. The principal range has, at ground floor of the 'Excise House', heavy cast-iron columns in five by four bays to four-way bracketed heads to jack arches. At the rear end of the new glazed entry is a high triangular pediment with a plaster cartouche inscribed 'D & Co' (Davis) under the date 1902.

There has been a brewery on the site since 1252, operating until final closure in the 1980s. In 1742 it was owned by the Flew family and was sold to William Devenish in 1824. Three separate breweries operated on the site: Davis Brewery, the smallest, ceased working in the early 19th century, and Groves continued until 1960 when it was incorporated with Devenish. The late 20th-century adaptation of the buildings represents an interesting co-operation between the Local Authority and the owners as part of a general upgrading of the whole area. Two early engines have been retained and displayed: the earlier from 1851, built by Barrett, Exall and Evans of Reading, and the other of circa 1890, by E S Hindley and Sons of Bourton, Dorset. The buildings have intrinsic architectural interest and, with the total disappearance of brewing from the Hope Square area, form part of an outstanding group and a vital reminder of a major industry in Weymouth for many centuries.