About Charlton Estate

The Charlton Estate occupies a narrow valley of the river Sheppey on the eastern side of Shepton Mallet.

The site has a tradition of industrial occupation dating back some 400 years represented by many existing buildings; from the heyday of the woollen industry and its decline; replaced by brewing, and later, smaller, more diverse industry. All are represented here, a microcosm of the town's rich industrial heritage and barometer of the town's fluctuating fortunes over the past three hundred years or so.

Many of its older buildings echo a time when Charlton played its part in the West Country Woollen Industry that had brought growth and prosperity throughout the region.

When textiles declined in came the brewing, utilising an existing mill and retaining other buildings and features, not through any conscious effort to conserve, but rather through adaptation and reuse. Impressive Maltings were also built alongside the millpond which continued its function as motive power to drive machinery in the brew house.

This theme continued in recent years, when in 1984 the present owners Dennis and Sue Dennett purchased the then derelict site, adapting, reusing and improving existing buildings, thus creating one of the most attractive and sought-after commercial sites in the West Country. The generous use of local materials, including many natural stone features, characteristic of the local townscape, and sympathetic treatment of the site as a whole was not to go unnoticed.

The resulting development was nominated for the coveted National Business and Industry Environment Awards, which it won despite fierce competition from some of the country's leading industrialists.

The Old Brewery, Maltings and Brewmaster Buildings were soon attracting several international companies. BSkyB, one of the world's leading internet companies are here, sharing premises with their subsidiaries Easynet and UKOnline. Seamap, who design and develop a range of products for seismic hydrographic and offshore industries with sales and support bases around the world are among other hi-tech companies here.

On the engineering side, local agriculture engineer Alan Connock who was the first business to set up on the site, followed by Finland based company Metso Minerals who manufacture mobile stone crushers have a manufacturing base here. It was their machines from Shepton Mallet (then Barmac), that were shipped out to the Ascension Islands to prepare and manufacture materials, to lengthen the air-strips prior to the Falkland conflict, and then onto the Falkland Islands to re lay air-strips following the war.

Various well-known companies have offices on the site and to add to the diversity the Monet Fine Art gallery are also based at the Charlton Estate, attracting interest from around the world.

It is just such diversity of industry at the various Brewery buildings, which has created a solid industrial base in the town. As a result, Shepton Mallet's entrepreneurs feel very upbeat, and with very good reason.