Glos Cider Wickwar Barrel brass collar
Name/Title
Glos Cider Wickwar Barrel brass collarEntry/Object ID
2025.1.474Description
Glos Cider Wickwar Barrel brass collarContext
The Gloucestershire Cider Company Limited. from ‘200 Years of Brewing. West Country Breweries. 1960’ The Premises at Wickwar Cider has been produced at the Wickwar factory of the Gloucestershire Cider Company for more than 36 years, but the origins of the company go back to 1800. It was in that year that Mr. Thomas Arnold opened a brewery in the High Street, later being succeeded by his three sons, Thomas, Stephen and John who carried on business under the name of Arnold & Company. As the business prospered it was soon necessary to build a new brewery, and this was erected on the present site of the Gloucestershire Cider Company near Wickwar railway station. By 1876 Stephen and John Arnold had left the company and in that year Thomas was joined in partnership by a Churchdown farmer named Halsey. After investing considerable capital in the business Mr. Halsey eventually gained control, and in 1884 he transferred the brewery to his two sons, Arnold and William, and to his future son-in-law Mr H. Wiles. From that time the brewery flourished, and two years later the firm of Arnold & Co. Ltd. was floated to acquire the existing company and also E. & B. Trimmer of Gloucester. The following year Perrett’s Brewery of Bournstream was also taken over, Arnold, Perrett & Co., being registered. During the next four decades the company took over a number of other companies among them the Gloucester wine and spirit business of J. & H. Hills. This was an important acquisition because it provided Arnold, Perrett & Co. Ltd., with bonded warehouses in Quay Street, Gloucester. Arnold, Perrett & Co. Ltd., was eventually absorbed in 1924 by the Cheltenham Original Brewery, and at the same time it was decided to devote the entire resources of the Wickwar brewery to cider making. Trading continued under the name of the Wickwar Cider Company, a title which was finally changed to the Gloucestershire Cider Company in 1931. The change over from brewing beer to cider involved a tremendous amount of reorganisation. The old brewing plant was stripped out, and the buildings converted to hold huge storage tanks. Since the war, with an increasing demand for the company’s cider, these storage facilities have been considerably enlarged, and new bottling plant has also been installed. Today the cellars, sixty feet underground, have some of the largest reinforced tanks in the country, with a total capacity of 1,500,000 gallons. In 1959 H.P. Bulmer & Co., of Hereford acquired a 51% interest in the Gloucestershire Cider Company Ltd., and following this agreement the company handles Bulmer’s ciders in addition to a full range of its own ciders, all of which are obtainable in Cheltenham & Hereford and Stroud houses. Source: Gloucestershirepubs.co.ukCategory
Breweries and Brewing