A brief history of how we decided to build the 1st whisky distillery in England for over 120 years

 

The Nelstrop family have a 600 year old tradition of growing and processing grain.

In 1335 William Nelstroppe was recorded as farming in Yorkshire;  in 1772  Joseph started a mill in Ackworth which the family moved to Stockport in 1820 where it is still run by the Nelstrop family. A branch of the family moved to Lincolnshire to farm in 1881 and is still at the same farm.

James Nelstrop moved from Lincolnshire to Stamford to farm when he was 21.  From there he moved to Australia, farming wheat and sheep.  On returning he moved to Norfolk to farm on the Breckland.  He has always been innovative, introducing direct drilling to farmers in Australia, bringing the first centre pivot to England to use Breckland water more efficiently; carrying out rural reconstruction work in Russia as CEO of the Nuffield Russia Trust for 7 years, and turning a worn out vegetable farm on the Lakenheath fens into the first whole Countryside Stewardships Scheme Farm for organic sheep and cattle and to encourage the wild bird population.

It was inevitable that, on turning 60, he did not wish to retire but to do something different, tied into farming.  With his son Andrew they decided to investigate a subject close to James’s heart – whisky production which had stopped in England over 100 years ago.  The best barley is grown in Norfolk and the Breckland water is superb. Several concepts were considered, a great deal of research was done in Scotland, Ireland and Wales and in October 2005 a planning application was submitted with approval granted on 10th January 2006.

Although the initial idea was for a micro distillery (we have several micro breweries in the area), customs and excise wouldn’t consider anything smaller than 1800 ltr stills (larger than some in Scotland!).  So, in a field we owned down by the River Thet, the footings were dug and the building work began with Andrew at the helm as main contractor.

We were fortunate that Iain Henderson a distiller of some note from Laphroig, although ready to retire, was talked into coming along to help get us going.   In December 2006 we were able to make the first 29 barrels of English whisky and by August 2007 we opened to the public with a visitor centre, fantastic whisky shop and tours.  Iain has now retired again, but before he did, he spent 4 months training David Fitt, a brewer from Greene King to take over. David is now distillery manager and is also responsible for making a superb whisky spirit.

We have now made in the region of 700 casks of whisky and are already exporting unmatured and semi matured whisky to Japan. We also use our unmatured spirit to make various liqueurs and creams, that we also market and sell at the distillery.  With luck we shall have a really superb English whisky for the 2012 Olympic Games.