Brewing up a mystery as beer bottle found in Wensleydale drain

It has been discovered buried in a drain at the Jonas Centre, a self-catering holiday venue, at Redmire, near Leyburn.

“It’s just off a footpath so perhaps someone threw it from there,” said centre manager Simon Eastwood who, with help from Neil Callaghan, made the find while clearing out the culvert.

The West Auckland Brewery once refreshed much of south Durham and, we now learn, North Yorkshire as well. It was established in 1840 behind the Manor House and the secret of its success was that its water came from a well on the banks of the Gaunless.

It really prospered under the ownership of the Monk family at the start of the 20th Century, with its horsedrawn drays supplying all the pubs of Weardale. A perk of the job for the draymen was that they could have a half – just to check the quality, obviously – in every pub they delivered in.

Thus, when they reached Stanhope 17 miles from the brewery, and dropped the last of the barrels into the last of the cellars, they were quite literally comatose.

The horses, though, knew the way home.

The West Auckland Brewery bottle found in Redmire in North Yorkshire

But unfortunately, the horses didn’t understand the niceties of the Highway Code when clattering up and down the banks of the A68, and so there were regular complaints about out-of-control drays.

Those were very different days: at the brewery, in mid-morning and mid-afternoon, a whistle would blow and the scores of workers would go to the “allowance” hut to receive their daily allowance of two pints of beer.

By the outbreak of the Second World War, the brewery owned at least 80 pubs, from the Rose and Crown at Romaldkirk to the Park Hotel at Redcar, and during the conflict, it received special dispensation to brew stronger beer to keep the miners and steelworkers well lubricated for the benefit of the war effort.

The bottling department at West Auckland Brewery in 1934 – perhaps they bottled the bottle found in Wensleydale

In 1962, the brewery was sold to Camerons, of Hartlepool, and brewing in West Auckland ceased.

The bottle found at the Jonas Centre, which has a charitable arm providing low cost holidays in its log cabins for families who can’t otherwise afford to get away, is in pretty good shape. Can anyone tell us roughly when it might have been made?