The tall building and chimney belonged to the Kinnell and Hartley Brewery on a site that first made beer in Emsworth in 1794. They even brewed Guinness.
The Kinnell and Hartley brewery ran from 1903 to 1928 and owned 26 public houses from Nutbourne to Gosport. Below is an aerial shot of Emsworth with the brewery highlighted.
Its owner Noel Kinnell served a lifetime on the town’s council, which provided funds for the fire station and Emsworth museum, buildings still active today. He was Emsworth’s biggest benefactor, bequeathing funds to build the sea wall promenade, as well as being the founding president of the Emsworth Slipper Sailing Club (ESSC), now occupying Quay Mill. Kinnell lived in Seafield, the mansion on the west side of the Slipper Mill pond with land stretching down to the water’s edge.
The brewery closed in 1928 and the site was sold to Leslie Marsh who developed it as a builders yard. Leslie Marsh was principally an engineer and draughtsman, trained in the 1930s in the Royal Army Ordnance Depot at Hilsea near Portsmouth. He started on a shoestring, building private houses in and around Emsworth.
Did you know?
During WW2 Leslie Marsh built a decoy town at North Binnes Island (SU 695 046) which was specifically designed to stop nearby Portsmouth from getting bombed!
At the start of WW2 Marsh was placed on the Admiralty list for defence contracts. One of the company’s first commissions was to create a ‘decoy town’ in nearby Langstone Harbour, which was lit up at night to lure bombers away from nearby Portsmouth Dockyard. After WW2 there was a building boom and Marsh worked in Emsworth and Havant, completing up to three houses a week!
A contract with Portsmouth Dockyard meant much larger machinery was needed, like the mobile crane above. Despite moving the Blue Bell Inn to make the yard entrance bigger they still struggled getting lorries and equipment into South Street. So, in 1963, they moved to New Lane Havant, establishing themselves with plant and equipment hire and developing large industrial buildings.
This site also housed various other industries, with Len Lewery and Leslie Marsh joining their surnames to form Lewmar here in 1946. The company was sold in 1967 and, whilst no longer based in Emsworth, Lewmar is one of the world’s premier suppliers of leisure and marine equipment for yachts, sailboats and motorboats.
- History of Lewmar Marine 1946 to 1967 – www.lewmar.com/about#history
- History of Marsh Plant Hire of Emsworth – www.marshplant.com/History.htm
- Information courtesy of Emsworth museum – https://emsworthmuseum.org.uk