Ian Scott: Celebrating centuries of Falkirk brewing history

I was so concerned to expose the secret pint swilling that made my stay there so memorable that I didn’t say much about the history of the brewery itself which operated in Falkirk for two centuries and cloaked the town in such a wonderful aroma on brewing days.

It was back in 1740 that the first James (or maybe John) Aitken began brewing his ale and porter in the town.

At that time the firm occupied a site on the south side of Newmarket Street where the Royal Hotel and the Pavilion (or Gaumont) picture house stood at a later date.

There is a local legend that Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Highland soldiers, fresh from routing the redcoats in January 1746 were hell bent on a bit of pillaging or worse.

However they caught a whiff of Mr Aitken’s brew and proceeded to spend the next 11 days on a mammoth ale tasting session much to the relief of the locals.

The firm soon built a reputation for the quality of its beers and stouts and successive generations of Aitken’s (nearly all called James, including one famous Provost) extended and developed production so that by the mid 19th Century the firm began to export all over the world and especially to the Empire where they regularly won awards for excellence.

There were occasional hiccups like the time when the firm received complaints about the taste of the stout only to find that the water they were using was draining down through several lairs in the church graveyard. Jokes about the beer having ‘body’ were not encouraged.

In 1900 a major rebuilding programme brought the familiar red brick brewery building with its 180ft chimney which dominated the skyline until it was demolished by army engineers in 1970.

The site was extended down Hope Street to the railway line and a special siding was built to bring in raw materials and carry away the finished product whether in wooden barrels or bottles from a big new bottling hall.

One report at the time stated: “The engine room is the most interesting place, and is tastefully arranged and decorated; it contains a large and powerful steam engine”.

In 1910 a 518-ft bore was made to improve the supply of water and 17 years later a second well was sunk this time to a depth of 700ft from which the water was drawn at a rate of 240 gallons per minute.

The firm continued to prosper owning many pubs throughout the country and by the 1950s the bottling hall was producing 1,200 dozen bottles per hour and there were over 200 employees.

The sight and sound of the bottles rattling along the production line through the Hope Street windows will stay long in the memory.

In 1960 Aitken’s became part of Caledonian United Breweries which was then swallowed up by Tennents to form Tennent Caledonian and soon the Falkirk operation was scaled down.

Brewing came to an end in 1968 and the site was sold to Falkirk Town Council for £141,000.

The buildings were demolished in 1970 and the town has never been quite the same. The huge site is occupied by Asda.