The Brewery - WESTGATE CHICHESTER

Henty Gardens & The Maltings

The Westgate suburb contains not just the main street but a collection of side streets that lead off the main road. This is part two of a series designed to present each of these in their own right. You can read about Mount Lane here. We do re-use material from elsewhere that risks being missed since it is scattered through other articles.

The Brewery

Henty Gardens occupies the eastern end of the Henty Brewery site on the north side of Westgate. This is where the original maltings were built in the 1780s, in the Squittery Fields, with the brewery itself more to the west.

Pages: 123

The Westgate Brewery (updated)

The following entry is made up of a number of articles about the Brewery assembled from different sources by Richard Brownfield. [Square bracketed numbers and symbols] refer to the footnotes at the end of this post.

From time to time, we bring in a guest writer to add to the content of our website. We are grateful to local historian Alan H. J. Green for his permission to reprint from this article entitled “The Westgate Brewery”, which originally appeared in the Sussex Industrial Archaeology Society Newsletter 137 of January 2008 [*]

Pages: 12

The Lavant River

In Sussex dialect a ‘Lavant´ is a winterbourne, which means it only flows during the winter. In C15th documents in the West Sussex Records Office it is also spelt as ‘Louente’ and ‘Lavent’. Most rivers start from a ‘spring’ and gather water from tributaries as they flow downhill.

Pages: 12

History of 24 Westgate

From the roof line, this house appears to be one of a pair with No. 26, which was at some point (c1995) converted to a single house intertwined with no 22. This is the smaller of the two properties and timber-framed, as is no 26, whose roof it shares.

Pages: 12

Hidden Westgate Histories 4: The Westgate Lavant

Most residents are familiar with our winterbourne, the River Lavant. Winterbourne because it is a seasonal stream that comes down from the Downs, filtered out of the chalk after the Winter rains.

Continue reading Hidden Westgate Histories 4: The Westgate Lavant

More on the Westgate Brewery

This article appears as a complement to the one published earlier this year

From Brewing to Business Services

The Westgate Brewery (now home to Mercers, a pensions firm) was founded in 1751 probably by John Dearling and from 1793, taken on by William and Edward Humphrey. The brewery’s association with the Henty family seems to date from 1827. Henty’s was an old-established firm and it can be traced back on paper at least to 1855 when George Henty already owned about a hundred properties in West Sussex and Hampshire.

Continue reading More on the Westgate Brewery

Opening of The Brewery Field – June 2016 (updated)

Residents will probably know by now that the Field behind the County Record Office in Orchard Street has been taken over by Chichester City Council on a 25-year lease from the County Council for the use and enjoyment of all. It is very unusual these days to be able to organise the birth and activities of a new park in a City, particularly one in a conservation area and so close to the City Centre.

Continue reading Opening of The Brewery Field – June 2016 (updated)

The Shape of Old Westgate

We are grateful to resident John Davies for the following article on the heritage part of our streetscape (the Conservation Area), using earlier research done by the late Dr Latchman which had been passed on to him.

The”shape” of Westgate from the old gate through to Parklands Road

Continue reading The Shape of Old Westgate

The Westgate Brewery

From time to time we bring in a guest writer to add to the content of our website. We are grateful to local historian Alan H. J. Green for his permission to reprint this article which originally appeared, entitled “The Westgate Brewery”, in the Sussex Industrial Archaeology Society Newsletter 137 of January 2008. And also to Paula Chatfield of Parklands RA who drew this article to our attention in the first place. If you would be interested in contributing something relevant to Westgate and its surrounding streets then do please contact us.

Continue reading The Westgate Brewery

The Brewery Field update (Feb 2016)

Following a very successful public meeting at the end of 2015, the three RAs who would benefit most from the use of The Brewery (Henty) Field formed a steering committee to launch a Friends’ group at the request of the City Council. The City and County Councils had made it clear that if this resource was not used sufficiently then it would be taken back by the County Council and perhaps built upon.

Continue reading The Brewery Field update (Feb 2016)