Brewery worker returns to site after 20 years

A former Mitchells & Butlers employee has returned the site of the brewery, which is now part of University of Wolverhampton's campus, for a nostalgic tour of where his career began.

Stuart Burgess worked at the historic Springfield Brewery for 33 years and returned with his daughter who works at the university as a school and programme administrator.

Visiting the site, now a centre for education and innovation, more than 20 years later, Burgess said it brought back many memories, adding the building was "always a place of learning".

"Walking through it now, you can still picture where everything was - the brewing areas, the labs where the yeast was tested, the people," he said.

He said he lived around the corner and started at the brewery as a temp, filling barrels in the cellars and rose through the ranks to the brewhouse and becoming a manager, eventually overseeing major logistics and delivery operations.

"You did all the shifts – six till two, two till ten, ten till six," he said.

"The yeast doesn't stop for Christmas."

Burgess was working as a manager when a devastating fire swept through the mostly timber site in August 2004.

More than 100 firefighters were sent to the scene to tackle the blaze at the four-storey building. Production had been switched to other plants several years before.

"When it went, it really went. You don't ever forget seeing something like that. It was heart-breaking," he said.

Seeing the landmark site transformed for education, Burgess said it "feels right", adding he had "nothing but fond memories of this place".

"After the fire, I never thought I'd see it brought back like this," he added.

His daughter Leigh said it was meaningful to accompanying her father on the tour.

"It means a lot to see where Dad spent so much of his life," she said. "And now to work here myself – it feels like things coming full circle."

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