Brewery Quarter Trowbridge

BREWERY QUARTER, TROWBRIDGE, WILTSHIRE

Proposals to redevelop the site of the former Ushers Brewery bottling plant led a team from Cotswold Archaeology to excavate two areas in the north-east part of Trowbridge, the county town of Wiltshire. The site lies in an area known as 'Conigre' which was not previously thought to have been developed until the 17th century.

The earliest discoveries were of some medieval pits, rare evidence of life in Trowbridge at this time and a surprising find in this location. Later evidence related to a substantial post-medieval town house, Conigre House, which was of two main phases. The earliest walls seem to relate to a simple L-shaped building shown on a map of 1860, but by the time of another map produced in 1885 it had been enlarged to a new, grander, design. Very little is known about Conigre House and its use; although by 1922 it had become the Liberal Club. The house was demolished around 1970.

Thomas Usher had acquired a small brewery in Trowbridge in 1824, and the business flourished in the late 19th and 20th century before finally closing in 2000. The site of Conigre House and the lands north of it were developed into a brewery and bottling plant after the Second World War, the brewery finally closing in 2000. Parts of the ducts and floors of the bottling plant were encountered in the excavation.

Recorded features superimposed on Ordnance Survey map of 1885-6