WHAT could be more British than real ale?

Set in the heart of England, Wiltshire has more than its fair share of old pubs and hostelries. It has famous breweries too, which are well worth a visit.

The famous Wadworth Brewery in Devizes was founded in 1875. In Northgate Street the brewery has a fine Victorian facade and was designed and built by Henry Wadworth in 1885.

Permeating the air with the dusky smell of hops, it has been producing fine Wiltshire ale for well over a hundred years. Wadworths is a brewery where family and tradition are still the ruling watchwords of its operation.

Wadworths Brewery, still has shire horses to hand to help deliver the brewed beer. The four horses, Wilt, Buscot, Royal and Tom are hard-working horses who help to transport Wadworths beer to pubs and hostelries in Devizes.

They are rewarded with two weeks holiday in a field near Poulshot and a welcome pint of Wadworths ale.

SWINDON brewery, Arkells is another well-known name in Wiltshire beer.

It is one of Britain's oldest traditional breweries and, like Wadworths, prides itself on a familial tradtion going back 158 years.

In the 1850's, Isambard Kingdom Brunel chose Swindon for the industrial works of his Great Western Railway.

This was around the same time that John Arkell started to brew beer for his own pub, the Kingsdown Inn, and from then on Swindon began to expand from a small market town into a industrial centre.

The brewery is still one of the finest examples of an authentic Victorian steam brewery.

Wadworth Brewery

Arkells Brewery