water table was sufficient to provide exceptionally pure
water, similar to the water table at Burton on Trent and
perfect for producing some of the best pale ales for which it
would become famous. What a blessing it must have been
that the water threw no lime deposit on boiling.

also saw that the then fashion for mineral water would
turn a heavy profit especially as drinking water was highly
polluted - advertisements offering Foxearth water as of the
‘highest standard of purity for pharmacoepia’ soon followed.

This was a time when taste was being developed by the
London  publications  that  percolated  through  to  the
villages. The local newspapers, though still read were not
instantly seized on as were the monthly periodicals, such as
the Illustrated London News and the Graphic. Hugh Jessopp, a
writer  for  the  fashionista’s  favourite,  the  Graphic,
summarised the changes he saw about him in the late
1880s.

The wells, bored by Isler and Co from Southwark,
London, were capable of supplying 2000 gallons of water an
hour and a special deep well steam pump, made by Barton
and Company of Sudbury was commissioned. The pump
was one of the most modern of its day; The East Anglian
Daily Times describes it as being “of the deep bucket and
plunger principle, counter balanced with rising main
working rods and enclosed in a bore pipe carried down to
the source of supply some 80 feet.’

The  truth  is  that  the  peasantry  have  begun  to  develop  new
tastes  as  well  as  other  people;  they  have  shorter  hours  of

work, i.e. more leisure, the women seem to have passed out of
the   labour  market   altogether.  I   have   found   them  reading

 This system of procuring water  is now  considered  the most
perfect  yet devised, the water  being  pumped  pure and bright

novels; they like to see things looking pretty, they put up neat
papers on their walls and they have an art for fashion.

direct  to  the  tanks  at  the  top  of  the  brewery  from  the  deep
water  bearing strata immediately before use. We  believe  this

is the only arrangement on this system in the neighbourhood.
 Messrs  Ward  &  Son  must  be  congratulated  on  the  success

 Food  is  changing  too.  It  has  to  be  nutritional  and  not  too
clumsy. People demand that food is made from the best fresh

and  natural  ingredients  and  all  sort  of  drink  is  lighter  and
fresher tasting, especially pure unadulterated water. All this is

that  has  attended their  indomitable pluck  and  enterprise,  as
the whole undertaking involved great risk, attended with heavy

One of the chief problems of more leisure time was that
villagers in some villages had nothing to do except drink
and get drunk. Entertainment was slight and usually
homespun. With some exceptions, squires, farmers and
churchmen disapproved of any social gathering that were
not under their aegis, where disaffection might thrive.
While village inns and alehouses which the farmers and
squireachy patronised were seen as respectable drinking
places, the ordinary beershops were seen as sinks of
depravity and sin.

Now that the brewery had an independent and copious
supply of sweet water, minds were turned to hiring a
leading brewer. After a selection process lasting several
weeks, the firm had decided to employ the services of
brewer and chemist W.H.A Barnes from London who had
previously worked for Collier Brothers at the Essex
Brewery at St James Street, Walthamstow.

scale, turning away from the heavier gravity beers that
people were used to drinking. Real strides had been made

After iniquity, drunkenness was the prime target of
Victorian reformers; which presented something of a
quandary for the good Rector. Here was a man that had
closed down the village alehouse, built a church school in

in brewing science since the method given by George Ewart
Evans and much more was understood about how yeast
converted sugars to alcohol and carbon dioxide and how
varieties of hops and different malts altered taste. Barnes