John Pearson Soda Works

John McFarland Pearson built here in 1859, and chose the spot deliberately: the lot stood in front of an idle mine shaft, and he used the tunnels behind it as natural cold storage, packing them with ice at a steady underground temperature. He moved into soda water from there, and in 1897 his sons added the brick second storey to house the bottling plant. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places and is not to be confused with the Fountain-Tallman Soda Works further along Main Street, built in 1852. It trades today as a coffee house and bar. The presence staff describe is a former owner who is said to favour the upstairs room — blamed for taps running in the bathroom and doors opening and closing. The current owner has described taking a call on her mobile with no one on the line and the Soda Works' own number showing on the screen, at an hour when she was the only person who could have dialled it. A local claim that the shaft served as a makeshift morgue in summer before refrigeration is repeated often but has no supporting record.