Brass in the Avon Valley was made originally from refined copper produced from Cornish ores, smelted at Crews' Hole or Conham. This copper was alloyed with crushed 'calamine', the zinc carbonate ore mined on Mendip. This area became the largest brass producing centre in the country during the eighteenth century.

By the nineteenth century local copper smelting had ceased, and had been replaced by- copper from Swansea. from mid-century it was being alloyed with zinc metal instead of calamine ore, made possible by new techniques introduced by William Champion at Warmley in the previous century.

The newer Birmingham brass works adopted many more modern methods in the early nineteenth century, which the local company ignored and so lost its complete supremacy in the trade. Many of their mills closed but the old Saltford battery hammers continued working until 1908, the last in this country. Their rolling mills, still powered by waterwheels, kept working until 1925. Keynsham's Avon Mill finally closed in 1928, bringing local brass making to an end.