THE shocking scenes at Thwaites Brewery in Blackburn over the recent bank holiday weekend when travellers caused damage to the site, prompted us to take a step back in time to look back at breweries in East Lancashire.

Plans for the chairman, Ann Yerburgh, a fifth-generation member of the Thwaites family, to be present when the last brew is produced, may now have to be cancelled.

Mrs Oscar Yerburgh laid the foundation stone for the new town-centre brewery in September 1964

The pictures range from Matthew Brown’s Lion Brewery, Dutton’s and Whitbread, all in Blackburn.

They show off all aspects of the trade, including Guy Branford, head brewer and production manager at the Lion Brewery, testing the progress of the beer production process in the fermenting room.

You can just imagine how many thousands, if not millions, of pints that have been created in fermenting troughs and would have passed along the process to our pint glass.

Keith Cross was keeping an eye on the brew house panel in 1989 at the Matthew Brown Lion Brewery.

One sight that is amazing is a copper kettle, or vat, being lowered into the Whitbread building on High Street using a crane.

The beer production process was almost finished by the time Bill Ryan got his hands on the barrel, as he is pictured smelling the barrel at the Lion Brewery.

Then you really feel like you have taken a trip down memory lane when you see the old fleet of vehicles parked up the Matthew Brown brewery.

Dutton’s, which opened a new base in the town in 1957, was another giant of the Blackburn brewery scene, famous for its ‘OBJ’ Old English Ale.

Do you remember working in a brewery or did any members of your family work at any of the breweries mentioned ?

Send us your memories and your pictures of those working days.