29/06/2026
After nearly two centuries as part of Dorchester’s story, Eldridge Pope & Co. is back — and we’re distilling.
The name will be familiar to anyone with Dorset roots. Since 1833, Eldridge Pope has been making and selling drinks from this corner of West Dorset. At its peak, the Dorchester Brewery was producing some of the most celebrated ales in the South West — good enough to catch the eye of Thomas Hardy, who wove the brewery into the Dorchester he knew and wrote about. When the brewery eventually closed, it felt like something the county had quietly lost.
We’ve found a new home at Wrackleford, a working country estate on the edge of Dorchester. The range is built around craft gin made with botanicals hand-foraged from the Dorset hedgerows — a juniper-led Dry Gin, a Traditional Pink Gin finished with angostura bitters the old naval way, a Dorset Sloe Gin steeped slowly from hedgerow sloes, and a Wrackleford Special Edition made with lime blossom, gorse flower and elderberry gathered from the estate itself.
There are liqueurs too, and wines chosen with the same care this company has always brought to buying well.
Same county. Same values. New chapter. Come and find us at eldridgepope.co.uk
