Listed Historic Paper Mill Transformed Into Modern Distillery

Phil Black - PII Editor 16/04/2015

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ALECTIA was appointed by Bacardi UK as the Process Engineers on their new Bombay Sapphire® distillery at Laverstoke Mill, Hampshire – a complex project to sympathetically transform the listed, but disused, historic paper mill into a world class modern distillery and Visitor Centre. Laverstoke Mill is a Site of Scientific Special Interest with the River Test running through the site.

The beautiful surroundings and heritage buildings at Laverstoke Mill belie the range of processes inside as Jon Boughton, ALECTIA project manager, explains: “Although the site is historic, in a Conservation Area and all the buildings are listed, we also had to ensure compliance with current building standards throughout. From the outset, sustainability and enhancement of the environment were at the heart of the plans for the new distillery. Furthermore, as gin is a flammable product, we had to ensure our designs and final installations provided a safe operation and complied with legislation on explosive atmospheres. We also had to build in Safety Instrumented Systems into the automation design and the whole process was risk assessed by HAZOP.”

He adds: “Everyone on our team had been involved with major CAPEX projects and extensive renovations before, but none as sensitive as this in terms of conservation and the environment. Because we were involved from the very early stages of the project, we were able to do feasibility studies, planning, design work and risk assessments for all the utilities and process engineering before detailed Planning Permission was sought. We worked with Bacardi’s design team to identify the ideal locations for process equipment before submitting planning applications, enabling the more elegant elements to come to the fore, hiding the functional elements and enabling efficient access for plant maintenance.”

Jon continues: ““One of our first challenges was to remove the first of the 3,000 litre heritage stills from the Greenall’s distillery in Warrington where Bombay Sapphire had been produced since its launch in 1987 and then re-install it in the new “Dakin Still House” in the Visitor Centre. At the same time, elsewhere on site, we installed and commissioned two brand-new, 10m high, 12,000 litre stills and designed all the attendant pipework and process engineering.”

“We removed the Heritage Still over a weekend. Our team had to carefully extract it from a working building and it was then transported to Italy for a full restoration. Once repaired and ready, we worked with the restorers to install and re-commission it alongside a replica still in the new Visitor Centre. The photo shows it being successfully lowered into positon by crane. It now continues to produce Bombay Sapphire using the vapour infusion process to a 200 year old recipe, and the gin is the same high quality as that produced by the other brand new stills on site.”

Equally complex was the heat recovery and sustainable energy brief. “Sustainability was high on the agenda in this project. Laverstoke Mill is the first ever refurbishment project in Britain to achieve a BREEAM ‘Outstanding’ rating. It scored 100% of available credits in the Energy and Management category and 90% of credits for water. The process heat recovery system and the biomass boiler (that is partly fuelled by the spent botanicals) were incorporated into our design from an early stage and should have a significant impact on the overall energy usage on the site.”

In conclusion, Jon says: “I think everyone who was involved in this project is justifiably proud of our achievements. Together we have created a state-of-art, world class distillery and stunning new Visitor Centre whilst retaining the heritage of both Bombay Sapphire and its new surroundings. After all the heartache and hard work, it’s great to know that the process is delivering the same quality of Bombay Sapphire Gin, but at a significant reduction in energy input and in harmony with beautiful surroundings. When we look back at the challenges, and around the site, it is a massive accomplishment.”