IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Ridgeway Road, SWINDON, SN2 7RX

Arkells brewery and one of their colourful trucks.

Traditional tower brewery with a small steam engine in the basement.

Horizontal single cylinder steam engine built in 1920 by Marshall of Gainsborough as No. 72719. The cylinder is 9.5" x 20" and fitted with a governor controlled expansion slide valve. The flywheel is 7' diameter. The engine is rated at about 20 horsepower on steam at 60 psi. The engine is preserved and workable in a basement room set up as a bar with mirrored walls.

Thanks to our guide for allowing this view inside the empty mash tun. Top left is one of the sparge arms that sprays the grist with hot brewer's liquor (water) to start the process. The resulting sugar rich fluid is drained to the underback through the perforated plate floor. Originally the mixture was stirred by mechanically powered rakes but they have been removed leaving just the central gear.

Horizontal single cylinder steam engine built in 1920 by Marshall of Gainsborough as No. 72719. The cylinder is 9.5" x 20" and fitted with a governor controlled expansion slide valve. The flywheel is 7' diameter. The engine is rated at about 20 horsepower on steam at 60 psi. This is now very difficult to photograph as it is in a tight space with heavy mesh guarding and lighting with a very yellow colour temperature.

Horizontal single cylinder steam engine built in 1920 by Marshall of Gainsborough as No. 72719. The cylinder is 9.5" x 20" and fitted with a governor controlled expansion slide valve. The flywheel is 7' diameter. The engine is rated at about 20 horsepower on steam at 60 psi. As seen in 1988 the walls around the engine were mirrored and it was part of a hospitality area. When seen in 2023 the adjoining bar was still there but the mirrors had gone and the engine was a bit grubby. Although technically still workable it is rarely run these days.

Unfortunately our excellent guided tour did not include any tasting. I did, however, spend some money in the shop afterwards. The product is lovely in my opinion.

A modern water cooled plate heat exchanger wort cooler, also known as a paraflow cooler and built by Kelvion. This cools the hot wort from the hop back to a temperature at which yeast can be added for fermentation to occur. Although this is a trditional brewery dating back to 1861, this is a thoroughly modern piece of kit.

The wort from the copper is filtered through the hop back to separate out the hops. The liquid is then cooled and sent to the fermenting vessel. There are different fermenting vessels for ales and lagers. This was seen on an excellent guided tour of the brewery.