It was a confusing time. The national mood at the turn
of the decade was grim and the crash in the American stock
exchange in October 1929, followed by a downward spiral of
trade and employment, was beyond any government to
correct with unemployment reaching almost three million.
This was partly due to the history of low investment, over-
manning and inefficient work practices, intensified by a
culture that for decades had elevated gentlemanly conduct
above business education or enterprise.

The  brewery is  capable of producing four hundred  barrels a
week, while the large and well appointed bottling stores have

facilities for supplying no less than a thousand dozen bottles a
day.  The  spacious  cellars  have  an  enormous  capacity  for
thousands  of  barrels of beer. Those  intended for  bottling are

kept in  store  for  six weeks  to two months  to mature.  Every-
where the plant and machinery are up to date.

Almost  every  village  family  had  at  least  one  member  who
worked  for  the  brewery.  Foxearth  was  a  steadily  growing

community and in  a variety  of ways  at  peace with  itself  and
enlivened  by  an  industry  run  by  people  with  great  imag-

Confounding the national mood there was to be no
industrial stagnation at Foxearth. The consensus of Ward’s
beer drinking public was enthusiastic and a further 210
foot well was bored at the Pinkuah Arms in Pentlow which
the Ward’s had bought that year from the Bull family33.
Whether it was a speculative buy and they expected to
build a brew house on the licensed premises or pump the
water to Foxearth is not known but in any case the pub was
sold twelve months later.

The 1936 Brewers Exhibition brought yet more success
for the Foxearth firm. Out of 743 entries including entrants
from all over Britain, India, Canada, South Africa and
several large and important breweries in the U.S.A. Ward’s
further endorsed its quality of beers by securing a
championship Gold Medal for their Imperial Pale Ale.

It had been a triumphant exhibition and was a timely
success, for the domestic mood was to change within a year;
not through any immediate local or national disunity but
again through the external impact of foreign affairs.

 By 1931 the 50th anniversary of the first dedicated
brewhouse the glowing affirmation of success saw the
brewery producing 400 barrels a week and 12,000 bottles of
beer a day with ever increasing loads on the mineral water
business. Work had begun on new engine rooms (complete
with a Rushton Hornsby engine); a powerful ice plant
(which later contained the most advanced condensers) and
a newly equipped fermentation department. It capped a 57
year period of generally uninterrupted growth and profits.

Two years later on 1st September 1939, Hitler took the
fateful step of invading Poland. After a few desperate
attempts to patch up a last-minute compromise, two days
later Chamberlain announced Britain had declared war on
Germany.

As twenty  years  earlier, the  village and country
regained its sense of unity and national purpose amidst the
challenge and turmoil of total conflict.

A feature article on the brewery in the Sudbury Free
Press sketched the firm’s modernity at the peak of its 1930s
untiring output.

A new war was to have serious repercussions on the
brewery’s business. The previous year David Ward had laid
out significant capital when the brewery bought a new
centrifugal Worsnam pump to replace the previous model
that had been used in one of the original wells since 1897.

A business to be a success today must be abreast of the times,
and  Foxearth brewery  is  out  to meet the demand for  lighter,
more  brilliant  and  sparkling  beers,  compared  to  the  heavy