Monument record 2608/119/0 - The Lonsdale and Adshead Brewery, Park Green, Macclesfield

<1> Ordnance Survey, 1873-4, Metric Ten Foot Scale Town Plan of Macclesfield (Maps and Plans). SCH4489.

Brewery marked on the 1:500 town map of Macclesfield and the First Edition Ordnance Survey 25 inch to 1 mile maps.

<2> Ordnance Survey, 1871-1882, Ordnance Survey County Series (Epoch 1) 25 inch to 1 mile - Cheshire (Maps and Plans). SCH2462.

<3> AOC Archaeology Group, 2017, Land at Park Green, Macclesfield: Archaeological Desk-Based Assessment, R4036 (Client Report). SCH8271.

An archaeological desk-based assessment, undertaken in May 2017, in advance of a proposed supermarket development on land at Park Green, Macclesfield, summarises information about the brewery. The company records of the Lonsdale and Adshead Brewery state that the brewery stood on the northern part of the site on the Park Green frontage prior to its closure in 1950. The records suggest that William Paxton (or Caxton) commenced brewing operations there in 1790, passing the business onto his son-in-law Thomas Airey, who retired in 1840, letting the brewery to William Piers Leigh who then sold the contents of the brewery. Airey came of retirement in 1842 and set up a partnership with Robert Lonsdale a manager at another Macclesfield brewery, The Sutton. Lonsdale ran the brewery on his own following the death of Airey in 1847, forming a partnership with Thomas Adshead shortly before his own death in 1871. The British Geological Survey has records for two wells sunk by the brewery, one in 1872 and a second in 1874, suggesting that Adshead moved swiftly to modernise the business upon gaining control.