Monkwearmouth Brewery

Named as Stafford Abbs Brewery on Raine's plan of the 1790s where a figure is depicted loading a barrel onto a boat with a crane or joist. The colliers were supplied by water boats which carried the casks open at the top. They were filled from the brewery pump and the ships were loaded using buckets. The 1792 'Plan of Harbour' by JA Mackintosh also shows the brewery premises as 'Brewery and Premises of the late John Stafford Esq'. It is a single building, two stories high built close to the water’s edge. The crane structure can be seen at the front of the building. A brewery is also shown on Robson's map of 1817 and Robson's map of 1850 names the lower stretch of Bonner's Field as 'Brewery Bank'. The first edition Ordnance Survey map divides the brewery into two malt houses, a brew house, maltkiln, bonded store and office. A brewery building remains on the site, in recent times used as a public house and restaurant, but this was built in the 1930s as a Mineral Water Factory adjoining the much older Monkwearmouth Brewery complex.