More About The Brewery...

...Not as much as I'd like, just yet, but all fascinating stuff.

Ok, the story as I understand it so far, from what they call in the papers "a reliable source," is that the microbrewery will be part of the whole new "Discovery Centre" project, and it is being handled, at least for now, by the Old Royal Naval College themselves. My source didn't know much more, but speculated that there was a chance Meantime Brewery might get involved at some point. It seems unlikely (from what I have heard) that Greenwich Inc are part of the picture.

The building is indeed the old Brewery - rebuilt in the 1840s after a fire gutted a much older structure.

It was while they were clearing the cellar for the new brewery that they found a mysterious "room full of rubble" (now my imagination's running riot - what other "rooms full of rubble" are there in that place..?) and called in the experts. Underneath the car park there - where the lorries come in and out - they found a 200-foot well. At first sight it seems to be late 18th/turn of the 19th Century, and it looks as though it was animal-powered, pumping up enough water to supply 2,000 pensioners with their daily ration of 2 pints of ale.

There's going to be a full report of what else they've found and more details very soon, I'm told. The next Greenwich Industrial History newsletter will carry some information too. For now that's all I have, but I'll update you as I hear news - especially anything about who will be running this exciting new venture. Wouldn't it be great if they could incorporate some of the original Brewery gear and that well (suitable grilled-over, we wouldn't want any drunken accidents, would we...) into the plans for the new place?