Saltcoats Brewery

Business: Hugh Watt and Co

Location: Saltcoats

Type: Brewery

The Saltcoats Brewery, also referred to as the Canal Street Brewery, was built by Robert Reid Cunninghame. In the New Statistical Account of Scotland of 1838 it was described as having been "established about fifty-six years ago" which, allowing for a possible gap between commissioning and publication, would suggest it was built at the beginning of the 1780s. It was let to Hugh Watt & Co from 1785, and then by Hugh Watt on his own account until his death in 1836.

The brewery was offered to let several times and finally in 1849, when it was described as being in good working order and as having "excellent water conveyed by lead pipes to a large cistern on top of house, and into boilers".

Although the brewery was still a named feature on later maps, brewing appears to have ceased after Hugh's death and the land around it was let to farmers. Intriguingly, there was a football team called Saltcoats Brewery XI who defeated Ardrossan Castlehill 4-2 in 1897.