Ram Brewery Chimney - Ram Street, Wandsworth, London, UK
N 51° 27.441 W 000° 11.546
30U E 695045 N 5704424
This chimney towers over the former Youngs Ram Brewery in Ram Street in Wandsworth. The round chimney, built from red brick, surrounds everything around it.
Waymark Code: WMJMN3
Location: London, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 12/05/2013
Views: 6
The brewery, that closed in 2006, is a Grade II* listed
building with the entry at the
English Heritage website telling us:
Brewery complex. Late-C18,
early/mid-C19 with 1882-83 rebuilding by Henry Stock; and late-C20 additions
and alterations. Complex includes the 1882-83 range fronting Wandsworth High
Street between the former brewer's house (q.v.) and the Brewery Tap (q.v.),
the L-plan 5-storey Brewhouse and tower, then lower ranges facing Ram Street
and the brewery yard including the cooperage, carpenter's shop and late-C18
timber-framed store. 1882-3
FERMENTATION RANGE: To Wandsworth High Street, 3-storeys and 3 wide window
bays with weatherboarding between 1st and 2nd floors; brick segmental headed
arches above 2nd floor windows springing from stone capped piers. Wood
pediment above main stone cornice with weather-boarded tympanum. 3 raised
north-facing dormers to roof ridge.
INTERIOR: King post roof trusses with raking struts and metal shoes, below
which rows of cast-iron cruciform columns. Slate fermentation squares
survive, now faced in stainless steel, as do copper cylindrical fermenting
vessels faced with wood.
L-PLAN C19 BREWHOUSE: yellow brick, with tall round-headed window above
facing High Street, and lower windows under segmental arches at upper floor
above Portland stone band; cooling tower to top floor. INTERIOR: Surviving
machinery includes pair of cast-iron A-frame beam engines manufactured by
Wentworth & Sons; one installed in 1835 (12-horsepower converted to
16-horsepower in 1863), the other in 1867 (20-horsepower). Some transmission
shafting also survives, converted to electric power in C20. Tun room has a
pair of coppers, manufactured by `Pontifex and Wood, Shoe Lane, London' 1869
and 1885; mash tuns replaced in C20. To west facing brewery yard, late-C19
office range of lesser interest and altered, with canted oriel and memorial
plaque for the 3 brewery employees who fell in the 1914-18 war. Large
late-C20 additions to brewery attached to C19 brewhouse are not of special
interest.
RANGES TO NORTH: Facing Ram Street, 2-storey range with 4 rounded arch
windows at first floor, one now blocked, and altered ground floor openings;
further north, a taller range with smaller windows and brewery chimney,
replaced at upper level in 1903. Attached and facing brewery yard, a
3-storey range with blind 2-storey rounded arches between blind windows with
segmental arches at 1st and 2nd floors; late-C20 inserted first floor door
and steps to brewery yard.
INTERIOR: Cooperage ground floor has several rows of circular cast iron
columns with `fish-bellied' beams and heavy joisted floor above. Carpenter's
shop ground floor has cruciform columns in pairs supporting heavy beams.
Late-C18 store to north has full-height interior with king post trusses with
raking struts; exterior walls of brick in-filled timber framing with heavy
posts, long studding and long braces. Square base of chimney with
tall blind arch to each face and corbelled brick cornice, above which
circular chimney shaft.
HISTORY: London architect Henry Stock's first commission was the rebuilding
of Young & Co.'s Ram Brewery, Wandsworth in 1882-83. He went on to be the
company architect for the brewers Charrington & Co. Brewing here goes back
to the C16, but the Wandsworth Brewery as we know it today was developed
from 1831, when Charles Allen Young and Anthony Fothergill Bainbridge bought
the site from the Tritton family. The oldest extant building is the
early-C18 brewery house on Wandsworth High Street (q.v.), although there are
also the late-C18 storage buildings that form part of this complex. By the
mid-C19, the brewery was an extensive conglomeration linking the High Street
to a long frontage along Red Lion Street, with the Cut (a canal extending
from the Thames) stretching into the brewery yard and used for delivering
malt and coal. By the late-C19, the complex had expanded westwards to the
River Wandle, exploiting that body of water as well. The Ram Inn on
Wandsworth High Street was rebuilt in 1883 and remodelled in the 1930s and
renamed the Brewery Tap (q.v.) in 1974. A major fire in 1882 damaged part of
the brewhouse and malthouse, which interrupted brewing only for a short
time, and the new Ram Brewery building was constructed soon afterwards. The
Cut was in-filled in the 1930s, and large bottling stores built in the
1950s, but the brewery remained in much its C19 form until late-C19
construction of offices, a partial new brewhouse and the tall conical
vessels.
SOURCES: Helen Osborn `Britain's Oldest Brewery: The story behind the
success of Young's of Wandsworth' (1999); Lynn Pearson `British Breweries:
an architectural history' (1999: The Hambledon Press); Bridget Cherry and
Nikolaus Pevsner, `Buildings of England London: South' (1983, 1994)
Listed at Grade II* primarily for its remarkable survival of C19 machinery
including a pair of intact 1835 and 1869 Wentworth & Sons beam engines, but
also as the main working range of an unusually complete urban brewery with
C18 brewer's house (q.v.), late-C19 stables (q.v.) and early-C20 public
house (q.v.) each representing architectural and industrial developments of
the long-established successful brewery on this site.
Group value with the other listed components of the site: the Grade II
former Brewer's house at 70 Wandsworth High Street, the Grade II stables,
and the Grade II Brewery Tap.
Rate this waymark:
Is your description history or fantasy: History
Website for this waymark: [Web Link]
Public or Private Propery: Private
Additional waypoints to this waymark: Not Listed
|
Visit Instructions: A photo of the chimney is required to post your visit. Any information that you may have as to the history of the location would be appreciated. You may also add your best guess as to the building that it was attached to or any other information about the location that you may have.
This is a fun category so please have fun with it.
|