Burton upon Trent Self-Guided Walking Tour: History & Brewing Heritage

Welcome to Helen’s self-guided tour around Burton on Trent, a town renowned for its breweries and widely known as the beer capital of Britain. I am a Chartered Geographer with around 30 years’ experience of teaching secondary school students and leading fieldwork.I was born in Burton and have lived here for most of my life. My connections to the town run deep – records show my family to have been in the local area since the 18th century. Burton is a fascinating town steeped in history, and it contains more than 100 individually listed buildings and structures. During the tour, you'll discover the rich heritage of Burton. We begin our tour at the River Trent. We’ll walk through the town, taking in historic sites, such as Old Bass House, the Brewhouse and Burton. Bridge, to more natural sights such as the Washlands. We’ll end our tour at the historic Town Hall. It isn’t possible to visit Burton without seeing buildings or land associated with breweries. Many of the sites along this tour visit the buildings and grounds of the many breweries that have operated in Burton past and present. Burton’s breweries were some of the oldest and most prestigious in the country, and also across the world. Whilst the town was undoubtedly built on the profits of brewing, there’s a lot more to Burton that sometimes goes unnoticed so I’m going to try to reveal some of that today. The route is around 2.7 miles in length. It should take around 2 to 3 hours to complete, unless you decide to stop and explore places that I’ll recommend along the way. The first few stops are all relatively close to one another as there’s so much to see in the historic heart of the town along the river, but more spaced out as we move away from the river. Burton is a flat town and so there are no hills to climb. All routes have pavements or gravelled paths. Whilst the route is linear in nature, no stop is ever that far from the town centre.