Simonds' Brewery

William Blackall Simonds established a brewery in Bridge Street, Reading in 1785. In about 1790 Simonds commissioned locally born architect, John Soane, to design a brew house at Seven Bridges, now Bridge Street. Simonds’ hop leaf motif was featured on Soane’s brewery building. A similar motif can be seen on the later malt house building wall-ties in Fobney Street. At the time it was only one of many small breweries in Reading, but by the mid 19th century it was the largest and most successful.

 

 

 

By 1805 Simonds owned 10 public houses and in 1813 he won an important contract to supply beer to the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. In about 1814 he founded a bank in King Street with his cousins John and Charles Simonds and Ralph Nicholson. The nameplate of ‘J. and C. Simonds’ can be seen on Barclays Bank in the Market Place, with which Simonds Bank merged in 1913.

 

W.B. Simonds son, Blackall Simonds, took over the brewery and greatly increased the firm’s trade by opening more pubs, facilitated by the 1830 Beer Act which curtailed established brewer’s monopoly of pubs. Blackall took into partnership his two younger brothers, Henry and George in about 1834. When W.B. Simonds retired in 1845 the brewery became H. & G. Simonds.

 

 

When the British Army moved to Aldershot in 1872 Simonds gained the contract to supply beer. Overseas branches were formed to deal with the Army’s needs in such places as Malta and Gibraltar. With the growth of the Railways Simonds supplied stations throughout the West Country and South West of England.

 

Simonds was sold to Courage in 1960, by which time the brewery had expanded to both sides of Bridge Street on the banks of the Kennet. In 1973 the company announced that it was moving to a new site at Worton Grange next to the M4 at Reading. Brewing ended in Bridge Street in 1980.

 

Learn more about how "Hop Leaf" has moved on

 

Please click here for more on-line info.