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Monument details

HER Number:TQ 65 NE 69
Type of record:Monument
Name:Former Abbey Brewery, West Malling

Summary

The former site of the Abbey Brewery in Swan Street. The site was probably being used for industrial purposes before the brewery was built in c. 1880. The brewery closed in 1939 with the buildings used for other industrial processes until 1991. It was demolished in the late 20th century.


Grid Reference:TQ 6826 5778
Map Sheet:TQ65NE
Parish:WEST MALLING, TONBRIDGE AND MALLING, KENT

Monument Types

  • BREWERY (Post Medieval to Modern - 1880 AD to 1939 AD (between))

Full description

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Abbey Brewery, Swan St, W Malling TQ 6825 5778. The site was probably being used for industrial purposes before the brewery was built in c.1880. The first known owner was Casimir Goldberg (1880), followed by Howard White (1880s) and Thomas Phillips (1898), E and H Kelsey of Tunbridge Wells in 1920 and the Abbey Brewery Co. in 1934 until the brewery's closure in 1939. (2)

The original brewery complex was built round a courtyard with a four storey building, a two storey brewhouse and a single storey boilerhouse. Along one boundary wall are a series of single storey ranges including a bottling shed and stables while a later sales shop and Abbey Cottage (an earlier structure that served as a pub with coopers shop behind) front Swan Street.

Some of the minor buildings were demolished and modern sheds built in front of and behind the brewhouse when the site was used as a plastics factory by Insulating Components & Materials Co from c.1939 until 1991. The site has since been redeveloped as housing with the partial loss of the bottling shed range and the demolition of the boilerhouse and the shop. (1)


Wessex Archaeology, 1998, Abbey Brewery West Malling Archaeological Watching Brief (Unpublished document). SKe7257.

<1> Not applicable, SMR Kent uncatalogued index entry, Wessex Arch 1996 Abbey Brewery W Malling (Hist Building Survey Report) (Miscellaneous Material). SKE6440.

<1> Wessex Archaeology, 1996, Abbey Brewery, West Malling (Unpublished document). SKE17343.

<2> Norman Barber (Brewery History Society 1994), A Century of British Brewers 1890-1990 (Bibliographic reference). SKE6449.

<3> Wessex Archaeology, 1998, Abbey Brewery West Malling Archaeological Watching Brief (Unpublished document). SKE7257.

Sources and further reading

Cross-ref. Source description
---Unpublished document: Wessex Archaeology. 1998. Abbey Brewery West Malling Archaeological Watching Brief.
<1>Unpublished document: Wessex Archaeology. 1996. Abbey Brewery, West Malling.
<1>Miscellaneous Material: Not applicable. SMR Kent uncatalogued index entry. Wessex Arch 1996 Abbey Brewery W Malling (Hist Building Survey Report).
<2>Bibliographic reference: Norman Barber (Brewery History Society 1994). A Century of British Brewers 1890-1990.
<3>Unpublished document: Wessex Archaeology. 1998. Abbey Brewery West Malling Archaeological Watching Brief.