Theakston Brewery company acquired and closed down the Lightfoot Brewery, also in Masham. Theakston's expanded into Cumbria in 1974 buying the Carlisle State Management Brewery. The brewery had been owned and operated by the government since 1916. However, the site was a financial drain on Theakston's and led to the company being taken over in 1984 by Blackburn based brewer, Matthew Brown plc. Matthew Brown was itself taken over by Scottish & Newcastle in 1987. Paul Theakston (Managing Director since 1968) left Theakston's in 1988, and in 1992 established the Black Sheep Brewery in the old Lightfoot Brewery premises - located adjacent
Black Sheep (rock band) Black Sheep (rock band) Black Sheep, a Rochester, New York-based 1970s United States rock music band, was one of vocalist Lou Gramm's early working bands (it followed Poor Heart, which broke up c. 1970). The group, which had released the single "Stick Around" in 1974, the album "Black Sheep" in 1975, and the album "Encouraging Words" in late 1975, was no longer performing when Gramm was invited by Mick Jones to join the band Foreigner in 1976. Don Mancuso and Ron Rocco were later members of CHEATER, a local hard rock band from Rochester that released a 10 inch record