Violet Hill

19 Violet Hill, Stowmarket

Jacob Green was the brewery owner in 1850 and also owned the adjacent beer house. He sold the business to Hansard Jackson Bridges in 1865. He also was previously manager for Stonham Brewery and ran various local pubs. (Back in 1855 Bridges had been sentenced to 4 Years' Penal Servitude at the Old Bailey for intent to defraud Robert Cooper Lee Bevan and others).

In 1865 Post Office Directory H.J. Bridges are listed as bottled ale, stout & spirit merchant & brewer at Violet Hill brewery.

William Golland Ranson was listed as station master at Stowmarket in 1860, and later a coal merchant and an insurance agent. By the 1874 edition of White's Suffolk Trades Directory he is listed as owner of the brewery and again in Kelly's directory of 1892. Apart from some local pubs he also owned pubs in Ipswich, Woolpit, Botesdale, Rickinghall, Debenham, Kenton & Norton.

The 1891-92 Whites Directory lists William G Ranson as a coal merchant & brewer (Stowmarket)

In 1896 WG Ranson & Sons (Violet Hill Steam Brewery) was sold to DA Tollemache for £12k, who closed it.

In 1897 the brewery premises were sold to Edward Salmon. He also purchased the beer houses at Rickinghall and Botesdale. It was soon sold again to Francis Herbert Cavalier who also purchased Ranson's dismantled brewery in 1900. Cavalier was bankrupt by 1904.

Herbert Edward Miller acquired the brewery in 1904 and renamed it to the Suffolk Brewery. It had ceased trading by 1911 with the premises subsequently being used as a laundry.

In later years the brewery site was in a state of dereliction and was demolished about 2019.