Former Granaries at Snape Maltings

Summary

Former granaries built in two phases around 1884 and between 1918 and 1927.

Reasons for Designation

The former granaries at Snape Maltings, built in two phases around 1884 and between 1918 and 1927, are listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:
* as a well-executed industrial building standing at the immediate approach to the maltings close to Snape Bridge and the River Alde;

* for their the exceptional size, more similar in scale to the warehouses of major dockyards than typical Suffolk granaries;

* as part of the visually coherent group of buildings constructed by local craftsmen using local building materials, including polychromatic bricks from Garrett's own brickworks at Aldeburgh.

Historic interest:
* as tangible evidence of the industrial success of Snape Maltings in the mid- and late-C19, the largest maltings in Suffolk.

Group value:
* for its strong historic and functional group value with other listed buildings on the Snape Maltings site, including the former malting buildings fronting Snape Bridge Road (Grade II).

History

Snape Bridge is the most westerly navigable point of the River Alde, and the last road bridge to cross the river before the sea. In 1841 the established C18 commercial enterprises functioning there were purchased by Newson Garrett (1812-1893). By 1844 Garrett had large warehouses and an extensive maltings at Snape. A major building programme between around 1846 and 1859 began with a quadrangle of buildings designed for the storage, turning, and malting of barley. Malting itself began on the site around 1854, around the time that Garrett purchased a share in a brewery at Bow Bridge in East London. The new buildings at Snape were reputedly designed by Garrett himself and utilised red and white brick from his own brickworks at Aldeburgh.

By 1859 Garrett had persuaded the East Suffolk Railway to open a branch line to the site and the enterprise continued to grow. In 1882, the company of Newson Garrett & Son was formed to run the Snape maltings site, with Newson’s son George Garrett as manager.

In 1882 the first phase of the granary buildings was planned close to the south bank of the Alde, replacing a small riverside warehouse. Constructed in 1884, the first building ran parallel to railway sidings along its western elevation. In common with other buildings of this and earlier phases it was built of red and gault bricks. The granary played an important role receiving and storing barley before it was processed in the maltings. The original taking-in doors faced the waterfront at first floor, though a smaller (now blocked) first floor doorway suggests a proportion of goods may also have arrived by rail. A late C19 lean-to on the east elevation was later replaced.

The management of the Snape maltings passed to George’s nephew, George Edmund ‘Maurice’ Cowell until he joined the armed forces in 1914. During the First World War the armed forces made use of the wharf and siding at Snape Bridge. The company’s men were either drafted or enlisted, a shortage of cereal crops in 1917 worsened the company’s prospects, and the site’s young manager Maurice Cowell was killed in action. The company was merged with S Swonnell & Son in October 1918, a London firm of maltsters.

Under this new ownership (sometime between 1918 and 1927) the granary was extended, more than doubling in size. The large southern extension was three storeys high with rooftop ‘bluffs’ probably containing winches for lifting goods. Further evidence of complex vertical circulation is suggested by the repeated presence of blocked openings probably for flues or slides in the second floor. A large eastern outshot formed part of the same phase of construction and housed machinery, one part of which remains. By 1975 a further extension on the north side of this outshot had been created.

On the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 the government ordered the suspension of commercial shipping on the Alde. After the Second World War the Snape maltings complex became increasingly antiquated; the buildings proved difficult to adapt to modern mechanized methods, and the marshy ground on which the buildings were constructed was unsuitable for heavy equipment. Two further buildings were however constructed in the early 1950s, one of which, a barley silo, still survives. The silo, constructed in 1952, connects at attic level to the 1920s granary via a reinforced concrete footbridge.

As the maltings business declined so did the profitability of the railway. By the 1950s all malt and barley leaving or entering the site was transported by road; in March 1960 the railway itself finally closed. Swonnell & Son went into voluntary liquidation in 1965 and the site was put up for sale. It was purchased by George Gooderham, with the intention of using part of the complex for milling and the storage of animal feed.

The nearby Aldeburgh Festival of Music and Arts was founded in 1948 by the composer Benjamin Britten (1913-1976), singer Peter Pears (1910-1986) and librettist and director Eric Crozier (1914-1994). Snape Maltings was acquired as the festival’s permanent home, opening in June 1967. As the site’s post-industrial conversion continued the granaries were repurposed. All the grain bins, most of the internal fixtures and almost all machinery was removed, new internal and external staircases were installed, and commercial spaces and galleries were created.

Details

Former granaries built in two phases around 1884 and between 1918 and 1927.

MATERIALS

The C19 block is constructed of red brick with gault brick pilasters and dressings, with a pantiled roof. The C20 block has an internal steel frame with exterior walls of pale Fletton brick and the roof is covered in Welsh slate. All the brickwork is laid in English bond.

PLAN

The plan has been altered to meet the functions of flexible commercial space.

EXTERIOR

Both phases of the building use pier and panel construction. The brick pilasters all have pattress plates. The C19 phase to the north is lower and is two storeys in height with red brick walls, gault brick pilasters and dressings. The C19 pattress plates are all bullseye roundels without founders’ marks. The C20 pattress plates are plain roundels marked with ‘W B’. Door and window openings are all beneath segmental brick arches unless otherwise stated.

The C19 north elevation is gabled with a late C20 flagpole close to the apex, and an original plaque bearing the date 1884. There is a first-floor loading door, partly in-filled with a railing and C21 window. The ground floor entrance has been partly bricked-up leaving a small window.

The west elevation of the C19 range has 8 structural bays. The two left-of-centre bays include an entrance at ground floor and a blocked taking-in doorway at first floor. The two right-of-centre bays have small window openings. A single additional window close to the eaves at the right hand side is a later addition. The three-storey early C20 range to the right is eight structural bays long. The upper two storeys, originally windowless, now contain four small windows on each floor. The ground floor has three similar windows and two doorways, one beneath a flat concrete lintel.

The south elevation is three bays wide and gabled. At the apex of the gable one of two weather-boarded bluffs straddles the ridge, beneath which is a doorway onto a high-level footbridge that connects to the 1952 silos. The only other openings are at ground floor: a blocked doorway with a flat concrete lintel, and a small window. The south-east corner is chamfered at ground floor rising to a mitred brick corner.

The east elevation has at each end late-C20 or early-C21 dog-leg staircases made of metal (on the left) and timber (on the right). Doorways have been introduced at each landing. Between them is a two-storey outshot that forms part of the C20 range with a single storey element at its southern end. The door and window openings of the outshot are largely original, except for the doorway on the right-hand side. Attached to the north side of the outshot is a long single storey extension added later in the C20. The upper storey of the C19 range has had three additional windows inserted close to the level of the eaves cornice with flat concrete lintels.

The roof of the C20 range is pitched and covered in Welsh slate. At each end are weatherboarded structures referred to as ‘bluffs’ (similar to lucams). The southern bluff has louvered openings allowing it to function in the C21 as a bat roost. Between the two bluffs, at the centre of the ridge, is a square cowl with a wide shallow cap.

INTERIOR

The interiors are largely plain and open plan, leaving the building’s original structural elements exposed. In the C20 range the internal steel frame bears founders’ marks from the Dorman Long & Co Foundry in Middlesbrough. The floor levels between the two ranges do not match.

The two-storey outshot on the east elevation has an open interior volume and may have been an engine room. It retains a single section of machinery: four wall-mounted brackets support a line shaft with three wheels that once attached to belts.

The first floor of the C19 range has exposed structural tie bars made from railway rails (marked BW&C WP65), above which are the stud frames of internal partitions. At the east end small C21 rooms have been inserted, and a Juliet balcony with a sliding window has been created out of the original loading bay. At this level the C20 range is taller than the other storeys and retains its original pine floors.

The C20 range has an additional upper storey which also retains its original floors, within which regular rectangular scars suggest where flues or slides once provided for the movement of goods within the building.

The roof structure of the C19 range has original trusses, small collars, twin purlins, and replacement C21 common rafters. The interior of the C20 roof structure could not be inspected.

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, Nikolaus, Bettley, James, The Buildings of England: Suffolk: East, (2015), 496-7
Edwards, David, The House That Britten Built: How the Aldeburgh Festival brought music to Snape Maltings, (2013)
Hamilton, N, The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland, (1868), 489
Pipe, Julia, Port on the Alde, Snape and the Maltings, (2004)
White, W, History, Gazetteer, and Directory of Suffolk, (1844), 525
Simper, R, Over Snape Bridge, the Story of Snape Maltings, (1967)

Websites
Britten Pears Arts, ‘Who we are’, accessed 19/01/2022 from https://brittenpearsarts.org/about-us/who-we-are

Other
East Suffolk Council, ‘Snape Maltings Conservation Area Appraisal, December 2014’

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