Eleanor Berwick

Eleanor Muriel Berwick (born 4 November 1943), previously Knowles, is a retired English wine-grower.

Born in 1943 at Mengo, in British East Africa, Eleanor Knowles was the daughter of Robert Knowles OBE, Commissioner of Trade and Customs, by his marriage to Phyllis Muriel Jarrett.[1] In 1947, the family moved to North Borneo.[2] She returned to Britain to be educated at St Winifred's School, Llanfairfechan, Kendal Girls High School, Westmorland, and Newnham College, Cambridge.[1] On leaving Cambridge in 1964, she married Ian Berwick MBE; they have two sons.[1]

In 1974, after retiring from the rubber industry, Eleanor and Ian Berwick planted Bruisyard, a ten-acre vineyard at the village of the same name near Saxmundham in Suffolk, unusually deciding to plant only Müller-Thurgau vines.[3] By 1984 they were among the most successful of English wine growers,[4][5] and at a time of renewed interest in wine-growing helped to spread the news that establishing commercial vineyards in Britain was now possible.[6] In 1997 Ian Berwick was chairman of the United Kingdom Vineyards Association.[7] In 2005, Eleanor Berwick was a member of the Bruisyard Parish Plan Committee.[8]

The Bruisyard vineyard continued to produce wine following the retirement of the couple, becoming also a herb centre.[9]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c Newnham College Register, 1871—1971: 1951–1970 (Newnham College, 1990), p. 160
  2. ^ "Briton returns to Sabah to honour late father", Borneo Post, 19 February 2014
  3. ^ Decanter (Decanter Magazine Limited, 1983), p. 83
  4. ^ The Listener, Vol. 111 (1984), p. 14
  5. ^ Gourmet Vol. 45, p. 119
  6. ^ Stephen Skelton, The Wines of Great Britain (London: Infinite Ideas, 13 May 2019), p. 79
  7. ^ Decanter, Vol. 22, Issues 6-12 (1997), p. 6
  8. ^ Bruisyard Parish Plan, wixstatic.com, accessed 15 August 2021
  9. ^ Bruisyard Winery, Vineyard and Herb Centre, britinfo.net, accessed 15 August 2021