The Little Eaton Brewery
The Elms Farm was built in 1704 by John Hieron, grandson of the Rector of Breadsall who was ejected from his post there and settled in Little Eaton. John Hieron and his wife, Martha, had three daughters:
· Ann, who married Sam Rowland, a maltster;
· Elizabeth, who married Francis Radford;
· Rachel who married John Radford.
Francis Radford took over Elms Farm and worked with Sam Rowland, initially to establish a malting house there, and in 1780 he built a new building for a brewery.
In the aerial photo (left), the maltings was the long barn next to the road and the brewery was built adjacent to the maltings.
An excerpt from Pigot and Co's Commercial Directory for Derbyshire, 1835 contained a note on Little Eaton as follows:
"...a chapelry and village, in that part of the parish of St. Alkmund which is in the hundred of Morleston and Litchurch, rather more than one mile from Duffield. Here are many valuable collieries and productive stone quarries; bleaching grounds, belonging to Messrs. Smith & Sons, and machine-paper works of Messrs. Tempest & Son; there are, besides, malting concerns, and corn-mills on the Derwent river."
When Francis Radford died, the farm and brewery went to his son, also called Francis. Sadly, Francis Jnr died young and his wife, Martha, took over. Only one daughter, Mary who was childless, outlived her and the business subsequently went to Martha’s cousin, Jedidiah Strutt (grandson of the founder of the mills in Belper and Milford). He let the nearby Furlong Farm to Joseph Tatam (nephew of Thomas Tatam of Elms Farm) who, with his son William, managed the brewery. In 1886, William built The Limes on Alfreton Road. He died in 1898.
The Strutt family continued to own the buildings and control of the brewery was taken over in 1897 by George and John Bagnall, trading as Bagnall Brothers, who named it The Little Eaton Brewery.
The picture below shows the brewery in around 1900.
The Brewery was sold in 1902 to Herbert Alfred Seale who formed The Little Eaton Brewery Co Ltd, but ran into financial difficulties. A receiver was appointed in 1909 and the company was dissolved in August 1911. The brewery continued to trade but was taken over by Offiler’s Brewery from Derby.
Offiler’s Brewery, Derby was founded in 1876 when George Offiler acquired the Vine Inn Brewery, Whitaker Street, Derby. The Ambrose Street premises were acquired and converted into a brewery from the Star Tea Warehouse in 1884. The company was registered November 1890 and a reconstructed company formed February 1892. Offiler’s later acquired Hills Cromford Brewery in 1914 and John Hair and Son, from Melbourne, in 1954. The company continued brewing in Derby until Offiler’s were acquired by Charrington United Breweries Ltd in 1965 with 238 public houses and the brewery was closed on 30th September 1966.
Returning to The Little Eaton Brewery, in the early 1910s an off-licence was opened next to the brewery. Herbert Seale continued to manage the brewery until the late 1920s and was followed by Alfred “Pop” Carlier. The off-licence and the brewery became a popular drinking site for local men – despite a prominent notice saying that alcohol was not to be consumed on the premises!
The brewery and off-licence closed some time before the Second World War and the building became a munitions factory during WW2. After the war it was used by Carlier Brothers (Pop’s grandsons) as part of their garage business and then later for a vegetable packing business and subsequently various engineering concerns. Ownership of the building passed through several hands, including Cables Direct, PEL Purpose Engineers and MW Polymers. In 2019, it was bought by Richard Salt and is now used by Bass Bags, as a base for hiring, selling and repairing classical musical instruments, such as violins, violas, cellos and double basses.
