There was an excellent exhibition of Joule’s memorabilia at the Crown Hotel on 2nd April. Here, Neil Butler, the acting chairman of the Heart of Staffordshire Camra branch, writes about the exhibition...
The idea of an exhibition of Joule’s memorabilia in Stone the birth place of the brewery was mooted some time ago. But as with so many things time passed, no suitable venue could be found and organising other events took precedence.
Then in March 2011 it was arranged that an event would take place on 2nd April 2011 in Stone, this coinciding with the monthly Farmers Market. The location was to be the Oak Room in The Crown Hotel with the event to be officially opened by the Town Mayor, Councillor Rob Kenney.
Hurriedly our items were taken out of store from a garage and cleaning started. They had been stored here for a number of years, following storage in a roof space where they had been since they were acquired by the branch in the 1970’s and early 80’s.
On the day, we arrived early and set up. Items from members of the public also started to appear, a lot of whom were former brewery employees who also had interesting stories to share.
The room was crowded for most of the day, with a number of reunions occurring of people who hadn’t seen each other since closure.
We enjoyed the company of Anthony Heeley, the final Head Brewer, through a number of Draymen to Tony Dennis who was the Brewery Clerk for 5 years.
We also welcomed the present incarnation of Joules from Market Drayton in the form of Steve Nuttall (Managing Director) Adam Goodall (Present Head Brewer) and Jamie Joule, a direct descendent of the original family and he is in charge of marketing. Who very kindly brought a barrel of ‘IPA’ and ‘Slumbering Monk’ for visitors to sample.
The day was very successful and hopefully it won’t be another 30 years until all the items are exhibited again.
Find out more about Camra Heart of Staffordshire at www.heartofstaffordshirecamra.org.uk – and here are some pictures from the day by Stone photographer Phil Mitchell. You can see more of his work here.
