A BIT of building work 25 years ago gave clues to the brewing industry in Dalton.

Peter Braithwaite was pictured in the Evening Mail of September 14 in 1991 with dozens of vintage glass and stoneware bottles.

Many of them were embossed "Dalton Brewery" and came from the cellar of a house in the town.

The paper noted: "Peter discovered the bottles, which come from the old Dalton brewery, while his family were digging up their cellar at 42 Market Street."

The bottles came from the Dalton Brewery which had closed in 1909 and stood near the Roxy cinema - now the entrance to the Dalton Co-operative Supermarket.

Mrs Braithwaite told the Mail in 1991: "The bottles were all laid out neatly in regimented rows.

"There were hundreds but many of them were broken as we were using pickaxes to dig up the floor.

"We were half expecting to find the body of the person who had drunk the beer and left all the empties!"

Sidney Hall and William Ashburner had the brewery from 1884 and twice failed to sell it at auction in 1901 and 1903.

In 1903, the auctioneer was William Robinson, of Dalton, and the sale day was Friday, December 4.

The brewery came with a pop making plant - then called aerated water - 10 hotels, 10 beerhouses and several cottages.

There was a Beckside Brewery in Dalton which was built for a Mr Rawlinson in 1867.

The brewery site faced the Dalton United Football Club.

At one time there was also a Dalton brewer called Matthew Denney.