page_title: West Bergholt
section_title: The Brewery
hierarchical_section_title: West Bergholt / History / Development of modern Bergholt / The Brewery
caption_attribution_description: Osmond George Orpen, former President of the Old Colcestrian Society, former joint managing director of Daniell's Brewery &amp; author of books on rose growing and pig keeping, who left money in his will to build the Orpen Hall in West Bergholt, where he had lived and the Brewery was located.
context_page_description: West Bergholt, formerly known as Bergholt Sackville, is a large rural village and civil parish in Essex, England, lying near the border with Suffolk, close to the ancient town of Colchester. With a history going back to medieval times the village is now part of the Colchester Borough Council seat of West Bergholt and Eight Ash Green. In 2008 the village won the Class 2 category, and was placed third overall in the RCCE Best Kept Village in Essex competition.
context_section_description: The Daniell family had lived in Colchester since 1509 and were freemen of the town. The first member of the family to start brewing was Thomas Daniel during the 18th century, who produced beer for the workers on his farm. The beer was such a favourite with the men that he started selling it around the village and local area and in 1859 expanded the operation to two new breweries run by his two sons. The firm went from strength to strength and became a public company in 1886, with a value of £30,000. The biggest event for the firm was to have Osmond Orpen marry into the family, who was known as the greatest brewer in England and became the Daniells' head brewer before moving on to be managing director.
  This had a great impact on the village. Not only did it create more jobs and help expand the village but Osmond also ran the parish council and was overseer of the poor. In his will he, along with Lorkin Daniell, gave the land and money for the building of the village hall (Orpen Memorial Hall) and surrounding land (Lorkin Daniell Playing Field). The rapid growth of the village also encouraged service trades and building. Grocers, butchers, bakers, coopers, poulterers, and dealers in tea and fruit were established by 1851, and increased in number in later decades. Alfred Diss, builder of the new Methodist Chapel (1878), Ebeneezer Villas (1884), and possibly the small Gothic Cottages (1880s), employed 9 carpenters, 9 bricklayers, and 8 labourers in 1881. Fluctuations in the building industry were thought to have contributed to serious unemployment in the village in 1912. However, one of the most lasting improvements to the village from the legacy of the brewery was the instalment of mains water during the 1930s and then sewage and waste water disposal systems in the mid 1950s. Prior to this the village was supplied by a series of shallow wells (many of which still remain, although bricked up under the village's more modern housing estates), although there were three springs which fed public ponds at the Queen's Head, on Lexden Road, and near the White Hart, and there was a deep well at the brewery. An additional public well at the top of Newbridge Hill was closed in 1896 because its water was unfit for drinking.
  The brewery suffered losses in 1958 and was forced to sell to Truman, Hanbury, Buxton and Co Ltd, who took over the brewery and its 150 tied houses, including the Treble Tile and Queen's Head in West Bergholt. Trumans used the Brewery as a bottling plant and later as transport depot until it was converted into flats in 1989.
caption: O. G. Orpen
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