A giant printed under glass sign advertising Style & Winch Brewery Maidstone & Battersea made by Joseph Causton. Or does it look huge because Mary is so tiny ?! Well, a combination of both really - the sign measures 52" x 42", Mary is 59" head to toe ! This unrecorded piece of advertising hung in 'The Ship' public house in Rochester for 50 years, rumour is that before that time it was displayed in the brewery boardroom. The detail is amazing, pictures don't do it justice, right down to the jug & glass weather vane. An amusing snippet about this architectural feature appeared in 'Kent Tells the World' from 1933 :
The Medway Brewery
And now for a word or two about the Brewery itself. That great red brick pile on the bank of the Medway, close to the Maidstone Bridge, surmounted by one of the most famous weather vanes in England, the old brown beer jug and glass. It used to be a standing joke to point this out to strangers and ask them to guess the capacity in gallons; the guesses were always wrong, more or less, the height of the vane from the ground being so misleading – here is the correct answer. The jug, which is made of copper, stands 5 feet high and holds 108 gallons; the glass is nearly 3 feet and holds nine gallons.