Wadworths brewery and Clifton beam engines - TrustNews Jun 19
We had an educational and enjoyable April day in Wiltshire, and were blessed with good weather and excellent guides at both venues.
In 1875 an enterprising young farmer, Henry Wadworth, bought a brewery in Devizes, made a go of it, and ten years later moved the firm to its existing, more imposing, premises in the town centre. Beer sounds simple to make - consisting of only four ingredients, of which by far the largest by volume is water - but we learnt that in practice, producing it safely, consistently and in large quantities is not straightforward. We tasted the barley, smelt the hops, viewed the vats, learned some splendid new words (eg. ’wort' and ‘sparge‘), met the sign-painters (the brewery’s pub signs are all done by hand) and two beautiful dray-horses, and then sat down to eat tasty pies and sample seven different ales (well, some of us did); perhaps predictably, most of us would have voted for the old favourites, IPA and 6X.
A few miles along the Kennet & Avon Canal is another marvel of Victorian engineering, even older than the brewery: the pumping station at Crofton. The two beam engines there (the older built by Boulton and Watt in 1812 and still in working order) were designed to move large quantities of water uphill from nearby Wilton Water to the summit pound for the canal, forty feet higher up. They are magnificent and well worth a visit.