SO a Leather (alternatively, Leather Hill) Brewery did indeed exist in the Sutton region during last century! An1850s map, forwarded by a local history buff, seems to finally confirm this fact.

The frothy subject has been fizzing around this cobwebby page since local author Brian Tarry, who specialises in the old-time pubs scene, asked if anyone could point him in the right direction.

He'd stumbled across a Leather Hill Brewery title during his researches but didn't have a clue where it had once existed.

In earlier response, publican and former police sergeant Tony Biggs helpfully suggested that the district name forming the brewery title may have been confused with Peckers Hill. He'd remembered, from childhood, being told that a Peckers Hill-based brewery had once existed in Taylor Street.

But now, two others with unquenchable interest in local history keep the subject bubbling along.

Bernard Murphy of Glover Street, St Helens, writes to say that the brewery mentioned by Tony Biggs must, in fact, have been the Phoenix Brewery of the late 1800s.

"The Leather Hill Brewery," he goes on, "was just inside Sutton boundary at the corner of Rainhill Road with Mill Lane (later Eltonhead Road)."

And W. J. Nelson of Amanda Road, Prescot, kindly forwarded a photostat section of a map from the mid-1800s which bears out Bernard's submission.

BUT the title on this map is given simply as Leather Brewery - so the 'Hill' part of the name, contained in Brian Tarry's copy records, still presents summat of a little mystery.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.