Henry William Armitage formed a partnership with Adolphus Frederick Nicholl to acquire the Holmscroft Brewery from P. & A. Black in 1882, which then traded as Armitage & Co. It also used the names of the Greenock Brewery and Greenock Brewery Company, which had operated in Nicholson Street in the 1860s, but how it came to this arrangement is not clear.
The company was prosecuted by the Inland Revenue for having concealed 122 gallons of wort from the revenue officers and were fined £25 in 1884.
The brewing and malting business was sold in May 1892 to Robert George Adam, who continued to trade under the same name. The business last appeared in the Greenock Post Office Directory in 1904.
Location: Greenock
Active: 1882 - 1904
Status: Dissolved
The Holmscroft Brewery in Captain Street was operated by David Buchanan & Co. from at least 1836. It was badly damaged by a boiler explosion in November 1840 from which the brewer, Mr Wallace, had "a remarkable escape", and the under-brewer was "very severely scalded". After the business was sequestrated in 1847, the brewery was offered for sale in 1848, and again in 1849. The facilities and equipment included a "steam engine, boilers, coolers, tun room, cellars, malt and hop stores, kilns, malt barns, sheds, cooperage, stable, hay lofts, grain lofts, counting house, brewer's dwelling house and yard", and the brewery had its own "excellent spring well".
The brewery was acquired by John Black, a local writer.
In 1882 the brewery was sold to Armitage & Co.and in 1892 it was sold to Robert George Adam. The brewery is clearly marked on the 1892 Ordnance Survey map, but the site had been cleared on the 1912 map. It now lies under a modern housing development.
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