Vaux brewery shrine created in Sunderland garage

Jul 2 2009 by Alastair Gilmour, The Journal

He is also very much aware that it’s not only Vaux that is now a memory but the whole of Wearside has gone through dramatic changes in recent times. He says: “I’ve got a son aged 25 and 10 years ago he would never have known Vaux existed; same with the shipyards. He’s had to Google information on them.”

So, what does the future hold for a collector of Vaux material? More company crockery, engraved glasses and door signs? Probably not.

“My wife is happier now, but I’ve been told to stop,” he says.

History

C VAUX and Sons was established in 1837, though some records – and signage – show 1806, which would have made Cuthbert Vaux six when he started brewing.

Not long before it closed, Vaux was producing 30 million pints of beer a year. Vaux Double Maxim (then plain Maxim) was first brewed in 1901 to celebrate the return from the Boer War of Major Ernest Vaux and the Maxim Gun Detachment of the Northumberland Hussars. Major Vaux was the grandson of Cuthbert Vaux.

In 1919 Vaux bought the Lorimer & Clark Caledonian Brewery in Edinburgh.

Sir Paul Nicholson, brewery chairman at the time of closure, rode a horse called Sea Knight in the 1964 Grand National, coming 15th.

Wards of Sheffield was acquired by Vaux in 1972. In 1999 the company changed its name to The Swallow Group. This was bought by Whitbread following the brewery closure on July 2 1999.

Former Vaux employees Mark Anderson, Doug Trotman and head brewer Jim Murray formed the Double Maxim Beer Company in 2000 and set out to buy the old brands – including Double Maxim, Samson and Wards – which they now produce with great success at a state-of-the-art facility at Houghton-le-Spring, County Durham.