Brewery Square is a major redevelopment project on the site of the former Eldridge Pope brewery, in Dorchester, Dorset. The development is of an area 71,000 m², on a 4.6 hectares (11 acres) site. Once completed, the development will comprise 660 apartments and houses of mixed tenure, a 3-screen Odeon cinema, 6 restaurants, 40 shops, a Premier Inn and four star hotel and arts centre on the square and an NHS Health Centre on the main road. Phase one of the scheme, which was completed in 2012, involved the construction of a new health centre, shops and apartments. The Odeon was opened with the premiere of the James Bond film Skyfall. The completion of the main square of the site has been delayed until March 2013. There have been concerns raised that the development would increase the pressure on already-limited parking spaces in Dorchester.
History
The Eldridge Pope brewery was founded by Charles and Sarah Eldridge in 1833, and the company built the Green Dragon Brewery in Dorchester in 1837. Soon afterwards, John Allen Pope joined the partnership and production moved to the Mariners Brewery, still visible in the town's High West Street. The existing Brewhouse, on which the redevelopment is taking place, was built and reopened two years after a fire in 1922 destroyed the previous site. The site was sold in 2002, and the brewery closed the following year.