A HISTORIC brewery will encourage visitors to see how beer was traditionally made after restoring a Grade II-listed chimney in a £200,000 project.

Hook Norton Brewery will make its Victorian tower brewery more accessible to the public after receiving a £90,000 Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) grant.

It is part of its Hooked on Tradition: Accessing Hook Norton’s Brewery Heritage project, which will also improve the museum.

Oxford Mail:

 James Clarke

Managing director James Clarke said: “People are very interested these days in where their food and drink comes from so we’ve encouraged people to come and see how we make it.

“We’re still lucky enough that the brewery complex is one of the finest examples in the country of a Victorian tower brewery still being used for its original purpose.”

Work is expected to run until November and will give opportunities to apprentice builders and student filmmakers, who will produce a short film about the project for the brewery’s website.

The brewery was founded on the same site by Mr Clarke’s great-great grandfather John Harris in 1849 and the current facility was built in 1899.

It still uses its original steam engine to power most of the machinery between each of its six floors from top to bottom, brewing about 25,000 barrels per year. Each year about 10,000 visitors are given guided tours of the site.

Mr Clarke said: “The tower itself has a high cost maintenance. It hadn’t been used and was becoming unstable.

“It will allow us to open it up more so people can see the heritage and the building.”

Shire horses from a stables next to the brewery are used to make nearby deliveries.

The building has two chimneys, which were made redundant in the 1970s when they were replaced by an oil fire boiler.

The front chimney was restored four years ago but the company wanted to demolish the rear structure. This was blocked by English Heritage.

New displays, better signs and more historical information will be added to the museum, while new volunteer roles will be created.

The brewery owns more than 40 pubs, including more than 20 in Oxfordshire, and makes beers such as Old Hooky and Double Stout.

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