The "4X" or the "XXXX" was used to deliver Mews Ales to the mainland, it was too large to go up the Lukley Brook to the brewery and was loaded and unloaded at Newport quay. Here she is in fine fettle on the Solent. When Mew Langton's got rid of her, I heard she went to Cork in Ireland and was worked under a different name.
Below, a view from St. Thomas's church tower looking down Holyrood
Street
towards the Royal Brewery and the maltings, note the extensive railway
yard and a super view of the Medina estuary beyond..
Below, two old salts whose names have faded from memory. Dray
horses apparently have now been made obsolete.
Below. Up to date in the 1960's with a Mew Langton modern diesel lorry,
the side bars made loading and unloading easier than with the old
dropdown
sides of earlier models
Below. Talking of which, here we see an example of the earlier model
outside the Freemasons Tavern in Lower
St. James Street, Newport, in the late 1950's.
Above, the end of the Mew Langton's maltings in
1979.
It was all very strange, a mysterious fire swept through the old
building,
freeing the way for its demolition and sale of the site for
redevelopment.
It was not without its humorous moments; the fire brigade having
ordered
the evacuation of the Railway Medina pub opposite, I will always recall
seeing Jim Webb, the landlord and his wife, Val, standing outside
looking
lost and forlorn clutching suitcases as the old maltings blazed away.
The yard foreman, Terry Myers, (always a puzzling
choice for the job) meanwhile tried to prevent sightseers from entering
the brewery yard by ordering the large double gates that fronted into
Holyrood
Street closed. Chaos then ensued as the large gates swung closed
and the sharp arrow shaped lower ends of the vertical gate bars pierced
the hoses of the firemen who had laid them through that access
point.
They had done this in an attempt to contain the fire on the north side
of the maltings.
As jets of water now blasted in all direction, a
now frantic Terry Myers tried to undo the damage. To compound
matters,
the brewery manager had arrived on the scene, and was confronted by a
hysterical
drenched yard foreman trying desperately to explain his actions whilst
irate firemen berated him.
To howls of mirth from bystanders and and now unable
to contain himself, the brewery manager collapsed in fits of laughter
as
the wretched man raced back to the gate area and promptly fell over in
a heap. The now uncontrolled fire hoses thrashed around and
blasted
him to the ground as he now tried to reopen the brewery gates. Perhaps
it had dawned on him that an escape route from this scene was a good
idea.
Burning buildings, irate fireman, uncontrollable water hoses, a manager
in a state of collapse with laughter, was the stuff of
nightmares.
It was almost worth burning down the old maltings to watch it.
Unfortunately
the photographs below don't show anything of what ensued off camera to
the right!
