Welcome to Berry Bros. & Rudd’s Historical Archive
We’ve been trading from our home in St James’ since 1698. You can start to explore more than three centuries of our company’s rich history through our online archive.
Archive Highlights
Our online archive is growing and expanding as we continue to digitise more content and make more of our historical records available to view. You’ll find summaries here of the main record series that can be viewed on the site.
No. 3 Magazine
We first published No.3, as a bi-annual magazine, in 1955, and we still do today. In its coverage it reflects the wine tastes and fashions of the time as well as developments in the wine and spirits’ trade. Other articles look back at the history of the Berry family and its wine business, and tell the stories of some of our celebrity customers.
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Weight Books
Our weight books date from 1765 and are an unusual and fascinating record. In Georgian London it became fashionable to record your weight; customers began visiting No.3 St James’s Street to use our impressive set of dry goods scales to have themselves weighed on. Each customer’s weight were scrupulously recorded in ledgers, providing a glimpse into the lives of those, mainly the great and good, who visited the shop.
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Personalities
In our long history, we’ve supplied wine and spirits to the famous and the infamous alike. Notable customers include the Romantic poet, Lord Byron, Admiral Lord Nelson, future monarchs and other members of the royal family, half a dozen prime ministers, much of England’s aristocracy as well as visiting foreign dignitaries – all of whom visited our shop.
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WINE PRICE LISTS
Berry Bros first began publishing price lists of their wines in 1907. Across time, they reveal both the cultural history and the fashions of English wine consumption - and its limited range. There was plenty of Bordeaux and Burgundy on offer as well as Hock, Tokay and Port, but no French or German regional wines, nothing from Italy or Spain, apart from Sherry, and no New World wines at all.
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Film
The Berry Bros film archive has now been digitised and can be viewed here. It includes promotional films that celebrate the company’s 300th anniversary and many international TV and cinema advertising films for its Cutty Sark whisky brand from the 1960s and 1970s. Another element are films from the 1970s of the various Tall Ships Races, for which Cutty Sark was the long-time sponsor.
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Wine Purchase Records
Detailed records of Berry Bros’ wine customers survive from the 1870s. We have now digitised a selection of these earlier account ledgers and day books which reveal the demographic of our customers and their tastes in fine wine and spirits. The wine day book for 1914-16 is particularly poignant as it includes wine purchases by wives and mothers to be sent out to their husbands and sons fighting in France.
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To explore our online archive and view items and documents using the search box below, you will need to Apply Here explaining your research interest so that we can then supply you with an account and log-in. For help on how to search, click here.