A new beer making its debut at Nottingham Beer and Cider Festival this week takes its name from the Hethbeth bridge that carried travellers across the Trent for centuries – and from a piece of the city’s history that has largely been forgotten.
Hethbeth, a mild brewed by the independent Bridges Brewing Company, is named after the medieval predecessor of today’s Trent Bridge. It will be among more than 600 beers available at the festival, held at Trent Bridge Cricket Ground from 7 to 10 October.
The idea came after Nottingham CAMRA chairman Steve Westby asked head brewer Tom Burwood-Ansell whether a brewery specialising in bridge-themed beers had ever produced one for Trent Bridge.
“We had an idea in our pocket to focus on the old Trent Bridge,” Burwood-Ansell says.
“The old bridge, and its name, have a bit more romance – and not many people know about its legacy.”
He has a point.
A crossing for more than a thousand years
The first recorded bridge across the Trent at Nottingham dates back more than 1,100 years. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that in 923 or 924 Edward the Elder, son of Alfred the Great, ordered a stronghold to be built on the southern side of the river, connected by a bridge to the fortified settlement of Nottingham. Historians believe this may have been the ancestor of Hethbeth Bridge, although there is some uncertainty over the precise location of that earliest crossing.
The earliest bridge was probably largely timber, perhaps supported on stone piers. By the mid-12th century, a substantial stone bridge had been built, but Hethbeth was never a structure frozen in time. Over the following centuries its arches, piers and timber sections were repeatedly repaired, replaced and rebuilt.
Travellers arriving in Nottingham after crossing Hethbeth may well have sought out an ale. One of the city’s most famous pubs, Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem, claims to date from 1189 – although CAMRA cautions that there is no evidence to support the date and the pub’s documented history begins much later.
The woman who rebuilt a bridge
And if one person stands out in that long history, it is Alice le Palmer. Alice and her husband John le Palmer were wealthy Nottingham landowners. John was a prominent citizen of the town, while surviving records show Alice herself owning and disposing of substantial property.
Their connection with Hethbeth Bridge can be traced to the beginning of the 14th century. In 1303, John and Alice endowed two chaplains to conduct daily services in a chapel dedicated to St Mary on the bridge. Part of its purpose was to pray for people who gave money towards the bridge’s upkeep. John died within the next few years, but Alice’s involvement with the bridge was only beginning.
In 1311 she obtained a grant of pontage – permission to levy tolls on goods brought across the bridge – to raise money for building work. The accounts were subject to audit, and further grants followed. A record from 1314 specifically describes Alice as building Hethbeth Bridge, and the work appears to have continued under her care for 15 or 16 years.
This was no minor act of medieval housekeeping. Hethbeth was an essential route into Nottingham from the south, and keeping a long bridge standing across a river prone to flooding required considerable resources.
The scale of Alice’s contribution could still be glimpsed centuries later. Before Hethbeth was demolished, most of its surviving pointed arches were thought to date from around 1321–23 – the very period when the bridge works were being carried out under her care.
Flood, war and rebuilding
Hethbeth would need plenty more attention after Alice’s lifetime. It was damaged during the Civil War, and in 1683 a combination of flooding, thawing snow and river ice destroyed much of the bridge. Intriguingly, records suggest it still contained substantial timber construction at that point. The rebuilding that followed finally produced a bridge of 20 stone arches.
The ancient crossing survived long enough for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to travel over it on their way through Nottingham in 1843.
By the later 19th century, however, it could no longer cope with Nottingham’s traffic. Construction of a replacement began alongside it in 1868, and the new Trent Bridge was completed in 1871. For a brief period the two stood side by side – the Victorian bridge beside the structure generations of Nottingham people had been rebuilding for hundreds of years.
Once the new bridge opened, most of Hethbeth was demolished. A small part survives near the southern end of the present Trent Bridge and is now a Scheduled Monument.
History in a pint
More than 150 years after the old bridge disappeared, its name is now returning to Trent Bridge in a rather different form. Burwood-Ansell says its long history influenced not only the name of Hethbeth but the kind of beer he chose to brew.
“It’s really historic, hence why we wanted to do it and hence why we went with an historic style like a mild.”
Mild itself has a long history, although not quite long enough to have refreshed Alice and her bridge builders. The style developed much later, becoming hugely popular during the 18th and 19th centuries. Originally, “mild” referred to beer served young and fresh rather than aged, and early milds could be considerably stronger than their modern descendants.
Hethbeth joins other beers from the Bridges Brewing Company inspired by crossings and landmarks, including Lady Bay, Bennerley and Golden Gate. The family-run brewery sits on the Derbyshire-Nottinghamshire border, where Burwood-Ansell turned an enthusiasm for home brewing into a new career after his in-laws bought him an all-grain brewing kit while he was a stay-at-home dad.
“I’m massively into science and into the creative side of beer, and they do go hand in hand,” he says. “It all just snowballed from there, and when I was ready to go back to work I didn’t want to go back to a normal office job. I’ve just fallen in love with the whole process.”
Hethbeth will make its debut at the Nottingham Beer and Cider Festival at Trent Bridge Cricket Ground, which runs from Wednesday 7 to Saturday 10 October. CAMRA members have free admission throughout, while the main public sessions run from Thursday to Saturday, with tickets available here from £10.
And anyone sampling a pint of Hethbeth will be only a short walk from the surviving remains of the bridge that inspired it – and from a piece of Nottingham history that owes much to Alice le Palmer, the remarkable woman who helped rebuild it more than 700 years ago. Perhaps the first glass should be raised to her.
This article is based on a press release from CAMRA with additional historical research, compiled with assistance from AI tools and edited by Central Bylines.
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