IT’S one of the most visible chunks of real estate on Worcester’s South Quay and that’s quite appropriate because the old hop storage building, now converted into apartments, has as much front as its former owner.

He was George Gascoyne, a Yorkshireman who performed a remarkable right-angled turn in his business career when he came down here.

From being a jobbing printer up north, he moved to Worcester and reinvented himself as a hop merchant.

So successfully he went on to live in one of the city’s finest houses and assembled a wide property portfolio which included a vast expanse of land in Canada and a villa at Menton in the south of France with views across Monte Carlo.

Few Worcester businessmen flew as high as George.

He originated from the Sheffield area where he set up a printing and stationery business but, for some unknown reason, moved to Worcester in 1891 at the age of 26.

From the outset it should be pointed out young George was not necessarily strapped for cash.

His wife Kate was the daughter of a wealthy Sheffield industrialist.

Eschewing the printing world, which was a surprise because at the time Worcester was a printing centre, George went to work for Firkins, the hop merchants, which occupied the South Quay warehouse now known as Gascoyne House.

Having learned the trade and armed with a £1,000 loan from his father-in-law, George began on his own as a hop and seed merchant.

Such was his sharp and successful business acumen he eventually took over seven established local hop merchant firms including Firkins, Bucklands, Kents, Harringtons, Caldicotts and Allesters.

The Gascoyne family also grew from two children to four.

To accommodate them George built a pair of substantial semi-detached properties in Park View Terrace, occupying one of them, The Elms, as the family home and leasing out the other, Riverlynne.

With his expanding finances he built a jetty on the nearby bank of the Severn for his boat.

His next house was a considerable step up.

The magnificent Georgian property Lindisfarne stood in landscaped grounds in Barbourne Terrace.

So spacious it later became the County NFU HQ for many years.

George’s business also grew steadily, occupying not only the South Quay warehouse but also a four-storey warehousing block in Sansome Street and a warehouse off Little Southfield Street, later the home of furniture store and removal company Lambs.

George acquired other land and property in Worcester, including shops and buildings around his Sansome Street block, and he went into partnership with George Haynes, owner of the Crown Hotel in Broad Street, to build the Scala Cinema.

Much farther afield, he also bought a house in Wimbledon, South London, a wide expanse of land near Vancouver, Canada, and the villa at Menton.

George clearly enjoyed winter sun holidays to this villa while continuing to have Lindisfarne as his family home until he died in 1930 at the age of 64.

His widow Kate Alice remained at Lindisfarne until her death in 1950 at the age of 90.

Their son George junior took over the reins of the company and, like his father, was an astute businessman, widely-respected and highly-regarded in the hop and seed trade.

He was also much involved in local life and with Worcester Cathedral.

George junior died in 1953 aged 65 and a lasting memorial was placed in the cathedral to him, his wife Elsie and their three sons.

The four stained glass commemorative windows can still be seen in the Cloisters.

However, in a series of family tragedies, all George junior’s sons predeceased him and as conditions changed the company fell into decline in the mid-1960s.

It was finally wound up in 1969.

But on a warm autumn evening, the time of year when hops would have been arriving at his warehouse, you might just see the ghost of George Gascoyne reminiscing on South Quay.

Worcester’s richest man who had nothing to do with sauce, porcelain, gloves or engineering.