# W E & J Rigden & Co Brewery, Faversham - Jan 2010



## Maniac (Jan 14, 2010)

Visited with Shadow, Frosty and Muffie. 

This place has been in my mind for years, but it's only recently since moving to Faversham that I went and checked it out, and last weekend being snowbound a local explore was called for. I expected the remaining buildings to be totally stripped, which they pretty much were except for one end of the back building which still housed some of the origenal equipment and thus makes it worth posting. 

Firstly a little history. 

Founded in the early 1700s by Edward Rigden. Registered in 1902. Merged with George Beer & Co (Canterbury) in 1922 to form George Beer & Rigden Ltd, when the Canterbury brewery was closed and brewing was then concentrated at Faversham.

George Beer & Rigden was then acquired by Fremlins Ltd (Maidstone) in 1948. Brewing ceased at Faversham in 1954, but was resumed in 1961 to meet increased demand. Following the takeover of Fremlins by Whitbread in 1967, Fremlins' Maidstone brewery was closed. Finally, Whitbread closed the Faversham brewery in 1990 and transferred brewing to Cheltenham.

A large portion of the buildings were converted to a Tescos supermarket in 1996, but there's still 2 or 3 buildings left un-used which we were able to have a peek at. 

(History from http://www.breweryhistory.com)

Outside Shot. The building housing Tescos is to the Right of this building.






Inside shot, a majority of the buildings look like this, lots of structural re-enforcement. I understand from a friend one of the clauses when Tescos converted the first building into a supermarket was that they made the other buildings safe and re-enforced the structure. 





Just behind that blockwork wall is the Tescos cafe. 





Success, there's just about enough left to make it worthwhile. 















At one end is this dodgey as staircase, but it's worth climbing. 





Top of the stairs










Right up in the top of roofspace. 





So there we go, not the most amazing place in the world, but another one ticked off the list. 

Maniac.


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## Lightbuoy (Jan 14, 2010)

Looks pretty interesting to me! Liking the second shot in particular -cheers!


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## Foxylady (Jan 15, 2010)

I found it interesting too. There's some great stuff going on with the shoring up, and I love that roof space. Tis something different too.


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