Cheque for the purchase of Higgins & Sons’ Castle Brewery. The brewery was situated on Castle Lane and since 1981 has been home to the Museum.

Until the late 1800s, weak beer (known as small beer) was the staple drink for both adults and children. This was largely due to the fact that before safe drinking water became widely available, beer was much safer to drink than contaminated water.

At that time it was also much cheaper to brew beer locally rather than pay for it to be transported. This, along with the high demand for beer meant that there were many more local breweries than today. In a trade directory of 1890, there were 8 breweries listed in Bedford Town including Charles Wells and Higgins & Sons.

Higgins & Sons’ Castle Brewery was started in 1837 by Charles Higgins, innholder of the Swan Inn (now the Swan Hotel) when he rented Castle Close from the Duke of Bedford for 5 shillings per annum. Charles promised to build a house and brewery on the land. Castle Brewery as it was named was completed by April 1838 and quickly prospered. By 1860, Higgins & Sons owned 15 public houses and later built The Embankment Hotel in 1891. The house, which we know as the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, was completed in 1846.

With the decline of the industry in the late 1800s and early 1900s the larger breweries bought many of the smaller ones. In December 1927 this is what happened to Higgins & Sons Ltd. when it was sold to Wells and Winch of Biggleswade for £180,000. Unfortunately, the building’s life as a brewery after the sale was short and it was auctioned in 1929.

Since then the building has been used for a variety of purposes. It housed a clothing factory - Bennetts’ Works for many years and in the mid-1960s it was occupied by the GPO as a sorting office. When it became vacant in 1976 it was decided that the building would make an appropriate home for Bedford Museum, especially with the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery next door. Bedford Museum opened its doors in the former brewery almost 20 years ago in December 1981.