Closed brewery
Essex Brewery, St James Street E17 7FE (Waltham Forest)
First sold beer: 1859
Ceased brewing: 1971
Founded as a steam-powered brewery by William Hawes, this operation was first known simply as the Walthamstow Brewery, and located on the north side of St James Street (then known as Marsh Street) immediately west of its junction with South Grove and Markhouse Road. It drew water from two artesian wells on the site, which it also supplied to locals as washing water.
It was renamed the Essex Brewery when it was bought by the Collier brothers in 1871, at a time this area still formed part of Essex. An advertisement from 1890 shows it made an extensive range of beers typical of the day, all in cask, including four milds of varying strengths, a bitter, an amber ale, two IPAs and three porters and stouts. By 1900 the business employed over 100 staff.
The brewery and its five pubs were sold on again in 1920 to the Tollemache Brewery of Ipswich, which had been founded in 1856 as Charles Cullingham & Co, but had been in the hands of the Tollemache family since 1888. The family had ambitions to build a significant regional if not a national brewery, and the Walthamstow plant was put to use brewing Tolly brands for the lucrative London and southwest Essex markets, including a growing tied estate, a function it continued to fulfill when its owner merged with Ipswich neighbours the Cobbold Cliff Brewery (a concern that dated back to Harwich in 1723) in 1957 to form Tolly Cobbold.
Where are they now?
Tolly ceased brewing in Walthamstow over the Christmas period of 1971-72, by which time the Essex Brewery was likely producing a limited range of cask mild and bitter and bottled pale ale and stout. The site continued in use for bottling beer sent in tankers from Ipswich until 1974.
The parent company’s subsequent history was chequered. In 1977, as non-brewing groups began to enter the industry through developments like Imperial Tobacco’s purchase of Courage and Grand Metropolitan’s of Watney and Truman, Tolly Cobbold was sold to shipping company Ellerman Lines. But the buyer’s expectations weren’t met and the company continued to struggle with a declining reputation. In 1983 it was sold on to business tycoons the Barclay twins, later owners of the Daily Telegraph, the Spectator and the Channel Island of Brecqhou, then to the Brent Walker property and leisure group in 1989.
Brent Walker closed the brewery later that year, but it was reopened the next year following a management buyout. In 2003, it was bought and closed by family brewer Ridley, of Hartford End near Chelmsford, which was in turn bought and closed by emerging new national brewer Greene King of Bury St Edmunds in 2006. Greene King still occasionally brews Tolly brands as specials.
Tolly Cobbold’s London pubs were eventually sold to other breweries and pub groups but a couple are still known locally as ‘Tolly’s’.
Things to see
The former Essex Brewery was demolished and the site redeveloped, with a new estate of flats built in the 2010s, although street and building name such as Hops House, Malt House and Old Brewery Way recall its former use.
The brewery tap was originally on the northwest corner of St James Street and Markhouse Road, adjacent to the brewery itself, but this proved inadequate and was replaced in 1906 with a new Essex Brewery Tap on the opposite, southwest corner. It was sold to Charrington when the brewery closed in the early 1970s, and was renamed several times: it was known as the Fallen Angel before it closed around 2006. The building still stands as the only visible remnant of the brewery: the ground floor is now a fitness centre with flats upstairs (2 Markhouse Road E17 8FF).
Updated 17 May 2024.
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