1890, When Beer Came By The Slab (3 August 1973)
In the first of this series of notes I asked if anyone could tell me more about the solid beer which was made locally for shipment to our troops in the Boer War. I said I had heard of this but couldn’t remember where. I also told how I once met an old man at a bus stop who said it was quite true and that the beer looked like slabs of chocolate. He then got on a bus that went round the villages and I never saw him again.
The note aroused some curiosity. For several subsequent weeks friends asked whether the note had brought any replies. Others spoke in tones which suggested it was a leg-pull, either on my part or on the part of someone else, aided and abetted by an old chap with a quick sense of humour. I myself began to wonder whether I had been dreaming. To my rescue comes Mr. Edward (“Ted”) Legg in a very fine article on The Inns and Ale Houses of Fenny Stratford in the current edition of the Milton Keynes Journal of Archaeology and History.
MALTINGS AND BREWERIES
In the article he tells of maltings and breweries which have existed in the town, including Holdom’s Brewery. This opened in 1851 on the present site of Valentin, Ord and Nagle. It traded for over 40 years and at one time had 50 houses, mainly in the surrounding towns and villages – showing there is nothing new or essentially 20th century about such groupings in the licensed trade.
Sometime after 1895 the brewery was sold to Bletchley Brewery Ltd., which was under the control of George Cave. After only a few years he sold it to the Aylesbury Brewery Co. Ltd., who closed it down in 1911.
To my relief Mr Legg then adds:
“The last brewery associated with the town was Cave’s Solid Beer Brewery, also owned by Mr. George Cave, which was started in the late 1890s and was to send supplies to the troops who served in the Boer War.”
It all happened over 70 years ago, but it is just possible that somebody around still remembers that beer and will enable me to tell my facetious friends whether it had a good top on it or whether it was sucked or chewed or smoked!
The journal itself is an excellent production, one on which the editor, Dr. Oliver F. Brown, of Upper Weald, and everybody else concerned can be congratulated unreservedly. It is published by the Wolverton and District Archaeology society and supplied to members of both that society and the Bletchley Archaeological and Historical Society.
A GOOD 50p WORTH
I found it on public sale at the Rectory Cottages, Bletchley, during the recent arts and crafts exhibition and consider it as good a 50p or 10 bob’s worth as I ever spent.
Among the book reviews is one of Sir Frank Markham’s “History of Milton Keynes.” I have been doubly interested by this because the reviewer is Professor A.C. Chibnall, of Cambridge, whose own book, “Sherington, Fields and Fiefs of a Buckinghamshire Village,” I have read only recently, but with much interest and pleasure.
Even more intriguing from the Bletchley standpoint is Sir Frank’s own review of “In Railway Service,” the book written by Bletchley railwayman and NUR official, Arthur Grigg.
Sir Frank was Conservative MP for North Bucks over a considerable part of the period of which Mr. Grigg writes and is mentioned by him in the book.
EXTRACT FROM REVIEW
I can hardly go on to write a review of a review, but I think the following words of Sir Frank about Mr. Grigg’s book may be permitted:
“The book is also an important social and political document, for it shows how, from 1922 on, the NUR had so increased its powers and influence that it practically controlled the Bletchley UDC.”
Sir Frank was impressed by a thumbnail sketch of Robert Maxwell, his political opponent in the 1959 election:
Robert Maxwell entered the door as only a confident business tycoon can, and gave a speech to match his personality.
“Churchill could hardly have put it better.” Arthur should be pleased with that.
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