Amber Patrick - Brewery Historybreweryhistory.com/journal/archive/123/Malting.pdf · The Bass Maltings, Sleaford, Lincolnshire. Brewery History Number 123 Summer 2006 17 despite substantial

14 The Journal of the Brewery History Society

Introduction

The period in question is a long one,more than 75 years. It is hardly surprisingtherefore if there were a number of quitesubstantial changes during that time inthe development of the buildings in whichmalt was produced. More than halfwaythrough the period, Stopes in his bookpublished in 1885 stated that ‘maltingwas a decaying industry’, yet some of thelargest buildings were still to be built. Thispaper cannot be a complete record ofeither all the maltings of the period, norcan it deal with all the developments overthat time. However, it will attempt to iden-tify some of the major changes anddevelopments during the period, and toassess the impact of changes, such asthe repeal of the Malt Tax in 1880, on thedesign and layout of malthouses. Otherfeatures which were developed some-times primarily for other industries butwhich were used in malthouses will alsobe mentioned.

One of the major problems is identifyingthe date of buildings, sometimes thereare full records, but often it is a combina-tion or map evidence, and entries in trade

journals which give some indication of thedate of a building. Generally Victorianmalthouses can be identified as belong-ing to the period, although there can bedifficulties with those built at the begin-ning, however precisely dating latermalthouses can be difficult.

Throughout the paper where possible thecurrent fate of the maltings is given.

The Buildings

Victorian maltings were constructedusually of the material most convenientlyavailable, and this was either brick orstone, although weatherboard on atimber frame might be used for a part ofthe building, for example at MalthouseNo 2 at Weymouth (converted) or atWatton Road, Ware Hertfordshire (partconverted). At these malthouses the bar-ley and malt stores which are at oppositeends of the buildings were timber framedwith a weather board exterior. No malt-houses of this period are known to havebeen completely timber framed. The useof brick and stone continued throughoutthe whole period. There was however

Victorian Maltings in England, 1837 to 1914

Amber Patrick

15Brewery History Number 123 Summer 2006

one experiment, if it can be called that,with the use of mass concrete. Two malt-houses were built at Newark-on-Trent,Nottinghamshire on the west bank of theriver and to the north of Trent Bridge [Fig.1]. Perhaps surprisingly there is apparent-ly no record of their building, despite thefact that it must have been a noteworthyevent. They were three storey buildings onthe Newark pattern.1 Both have now beenconverted. At the beginning of the periodtile, pantile, or local stone tiles were stillthe usual roofing material, although thatchmay have continued in use on existingmaltings. However, slate was starting tobe widely used and it rapidly became the

most usual roofing material especially withimprovements in the transport system .

Over such a long period it would be mostsurprising if malthouses had not increasedin size. Certainly this was the case withmalthouses at the end of the period havingeight floors (Free Rodwell's Malthouse No1, Mistley, Essex - converted), but sizewas not the only development. Althoughthe main construction materials were thesame at the beginning of the period as atthe end, there were differences. EarlyVictorian malthouses were usually con-structed with timber main beams support-ed, when the width of the floor required, by

Figure 1. South block of the mass concrete maltings, Trentside, Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire


cast iron columns, usually slender ones, orsometimes by timber columns for exampleas at the malthouse at Regent Wharf,Loughborough, Leicestershire built in thelate 1830s or early to mid 1840s. Certainlyupper floors where the barley and maltwas stored (separately) often had timbercolumns. They were not only necessaryfrom a constructional point of view buthelped to form the storage boxes. By theend of the period it was more common touse steel beams instead of timber ones tosupport the upper floors. This not onlyprovided greater strength but helped tofire-proof the building. (Maltings werenotoriously prone to destruction by fire.)

Another method of fire prevention was theuse of jack arching. This used a combina-tion of concrete ceilings arching to steelbeams. Examples are often surprisinglyearly as at Midford, North Somerset (con-verted) where the malthouse has beendated to the 1840s.2 An equally effectivemethod was to use flat ceilings of shut-tered concrete and examples of thisfeature were to be found at Lower BristolRoad, Bath (converted) and at the BridgeStreet Maltings in Northampton.

The epitome of a fire-proofed maltings isprobably Bass's Sleaford maltings (partre-used and part derelict) [Fig. 2]. In fact,

Figure 2. The Bass Maltings, Sleaford, Lincolnshire.


despite substantial fire damage in the late1970s when the buildings were no longerin use as maltings, they have survivedwith relatively little further deterioration.They are constructed of brick but withcast iron columns, and jack arching. Onlyon the upper floors was timber used.

Designed MalthousesThe Sleaford maltings were designed byBass's engineer Herbert Couchman, butit was not uncommon for malthouses tobe architect or engineer designed andfirms specialising in breweries and malt-houses were in operation by the 1870swith a few working before then. A surpris-ingly early example is Malthouse No 2 atWeymouth, designed by local architect,G.R. Crickmay. It is an attractive and

almost delicate building. Not all architectdesigned maltings were so attractive,most were plain, even severe, andessentially functional, for example themaltings of 1899 in Merchants Road,Gloucester (unconverted) by J.W. Wood.Rather more attractive and aestheticallypleasing examples include Strong'sRomsey Brewery Maltings (converted) of1902 by Arthur Kinder a well-knownbrewery architect [Fig. 3]. Somewhere inbetween are Rigden's Brewery maltingsat Faversham, Kent (converted to super-market) of 1884 by R. Waite of Duffield,Derby, and the Goat Maltings (unconvert-ed but due for conversion) at Burton-on-Trent by the well-known brewers' archi-tect, Scamell and Collyer of London, builtin 1883. Then there is Free Rodwell's

Figure 3. Romsey Brewery Maltings, Romsey, Hampshire, designed by Arthur Kinder.


Malthouse Nos 1, and Nos 3 and 4 (bothconverted) at Mistley, Essex of 1897 and1888 respectively. (Free was responsiblefor designing his own maltings whichenabled him to incorporate his ownpatents of hopper bottomed steeps andhis kiln designs.) In 1890 there is Bishops(Peach's) Spitals Maltings in Northgate,Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire (de-molished) designed by George Sheppard,the borough surveyor [Fig. 4]. There wereof course many others, but it was essential-ly the large maltings which were designedby a specialist architect or engineer.

Location

Malt is lighter to transport than barley.The buildings in which malt was madewere essentially large and occupied a lotof space. Thus their location in urban

areas was less economic when it waseasier to transport the malted grain. To dothis good transport links were needed.Therefore, to make the malt in a ruralarea close to the barley crop and trans-port the lighter commodity to where it wasneeded made economic sense, especial-ly when large quantities of the productwere required. So, Victorian maltings, liketheir predecessors of the 18th centuryand earlier periods, were often estab-lished where there were good transportlinks.

At the beginning of the period, in the late1830s, they were built adjacent to navi-gable rivers and canals, but by the end ofthe period a railway location was equallyif not more important. If both water andrail were available, the location was evenmore desirable.3 Although road transportwas in use by the end of the period it was

Figure 4. Peach’s Spitals Maltings, Northgate, Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire.


not sufficiently important to exert anyinfluence on the location of maltingsbeing built - water and rail retained theirpre-eminence as a desirable location.

Looking at the maltings built throughoutthe Victorian period it is apparent that notall were built with adequate transportfacilities available to them. There wasanother major factor governing location,the brewery. A brewery in an urban areamight well have its maltings nearby if notactually on site and in this case easytransport facilities were often less impor-tant. The important factor was the marketfor the beer.

Water transport

An early example is that built in RaglanRoad, Retford, Nottinghamshire (fate notknown) by the Chesterfield Canal in 1837[Fig. 5]. At the other end of the periodRobert Free built his malthouses, Nos 1,5 and 6 (very little left of these last two) atMistley on the quayside, on the southernbank of the navigable river Soar.Malthouse No 1 was built in 1897 but theprecise building dates of Nos 5 and 6 arenot known, although they would havebeen no earlier than the late 1880s andno later than the middle of the firstdecade of the 20th century. Further up the

Figure 5. Maltings, Raglan Road, Retford, Nottinghamshire. The maltings fronts onto theChesterfield Canal, which linked the north Midlands to the river Trent.


East Anglian coast, at Ipswich, maltingswere built in particular in the later 19th

century, along the banks of the riverOrwell, and further still up the coast, theSnape Maltings, (part converted and therest due for conversion) the building ofwhich started in the middle of the 19th

century took advantage of the river Alde,although they were later also served by arailway line. Likewise Great Yarmouthwas an important malting centre, andright round the top, Wells-next -the-Sea(converted) was another important malt-ing town. A later canal example isDownings maltings in Merchants Road,Gloucester built in 1899 on the banks of

the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal,although it did have a railway siding aswell. Another 19th century canal example,a magnificent stone built malthouse is tobe found at Elland, West Yorkshire (fatenot known) on the banks of the Calderand Hebble Navigation. All the abovementioned malthouses belonged to firmsof independent maltsters as opposed tobeing brewery malthouses.

The RailwaysThe main transport development of theVictorian period was the railway system.This encouraged the brewers, in particu-lar, to site their maltings in the barley

Figure 6. Thomas Berry, Sheffield Brewers’ Maltings at Sherwood Road, Worksop, Nottinghamshire.


growing lands. The most impressiveexample being the Bass Maltings atSleaford completed in 1906. There wereof course more modest examples ofbreweries with maltings at a distance butlinked by a railway line. Truswell's ofSheffield had their maltings at Barnetby-Le-Wold in Lincolnshire (built 1875 andprobably demolished by now), andThomas Berry, also Sheffield Brewerswho had their maltings at SherwoodRoad, Worksop, Nottinghamshire (alsobuilt about 1875, and now demolished)[Fig. 6]. The London brewers, Whitbreadhad some of their maltings at EastDereham, Norfolk (part converted andpart demolished), and Trumans also ofLondon had maltings at Long Melford inSuffolk (part demolished and the rest con-verted).

Independent maltsters also located theirmaltings next to or near to railways, forexample it would be expected that thosein Victoria Road in Diss took advantage ofthe nearby railway line of late 1840s date.F. & G. Smith's maltings at East Dereham(un-used) and Great Ryburgh (working)were both adjacent to railway lines. A laterrailway example is Tuckers at NewtonAbbot (working), built 1900 and extendedin 1903, somewhat after the railway wasopened.

Other locationsExamples of breweries which appear tohave had their maltings on site or nearbyand with no transport links, includeCirencester, where the CirencesterBrewery had its maltings (all but the front

demolished) further down CrickladeStreet. The Cheltenham Original Breweryhad their maltings on site at the junction ofHenrietta Street and St Margarets Road.The shell of the maltings still stands. AtLangthorpe, Boroughbridge, (NorthYorkshire) Warwick's Anchor Brewery hadtwo maltings on site (converted). A railwayline passed through the site separatingthe later malting from the brewery but itwas not linked to it any way. Adnam's SoleBay Brewery in Southwold, Suffolk had itsmaltings in the town. Of course thebiggest concentration of breweries andmaltings was in Burton-on-Trent. In thiscase some breweries had their maltingsnearby or on the same site, for examplePeter Walker, brewers had the Goat malt-ings in Clarence Street, and Salt and Cohad their maltings on site, on Wharf Road,off Wetmore Road (part demolished andthe rest re-used). Bass has already beenmentioned, but besides and well beforetheir Sleaford maltings, they had them inBurton itself, on Shobnall Road (demol-ished), Wetmore Road (converted) andthe Plough Maltings, built in 1903, theironly pneumatic maltings, in HorninglowStreet. All the maltings and breweries inBurton were interlinked by railways.

Some malthouses, however, seem tohave been built perhaps where land wasavailable. An example is to be found inDerby on Forman Street (early re-use),where a large malthouse of late 1830s orearly 1840s date was built with no imme-diate proximity to transport but in a townwith an established trade in malt. A furtherexample is the malthouse in St Andrews


Road, Montpellier, Bristol (converted). Itwas built over a railway line in the 1870sbut had no siding and was operated byvarious malting firms so was not locatedespecially near a brewery. Likewise themalthouse in Northgate, Pontefract, WestYorkshire (demolished) and probably ofan 1880s date, had no direct connectionwith the railways, and this was probablythe case with a number of Pontefract'sother maltings, but Pontefract like Derbyalready had a well-established malttrade. The Warminster Maltings in PoundStreet, Warminster (working), Wiltshireare another example of an urban malt-ings without water or rail links, and thislack of transport links applied toWarminster's other 19th century maltings.Again Warminster had an establishedmalt trade in the 18th century. A pre-exist-ing trade in malt seems to have led tomaltings being established even whenwater or rail transport was non existent ornot so well developed, but which mayhave been served by the turnpike roadsof an earlier period.

Invention and Innovation

Throughout the Victorian period therewere developments intended to improvemalt production, making it more efficientand therefore more cost effective. Theseimprovements might be small develop-ments, only finding occasional favour, orthey might be widely adopted improve-ments. The malting industry is traditional-ly a conservative one and innovationswere not always readily accepted with the

result that old methods were practisednot just throughout the whole period buteven well into the 20th century.4

The areas in which improvement weremade included kilns, steeps, and ventila-tion. Other developments, such as chang-ing power sources, and the movement ofgrain (conveying and elevation) were notexclusive to the malting industry, butresulted from improvements and develop-ments in other industries which were thenadopted in maltings. Thus steam powerwas introduced in some maltings but at arelatively late date compared with saythe textile industry. Examples of maltingswith engine houses include Beeston,Nottingham, Barnetby-Le-Wold, Lincoln-shire and Salt's in Burton-on-Trent. Gasengines were probably far more commonthan is realised but little trace of themrarely survives and their mention is oftena simple throw away comment that therewas a gas engine in the corner of thebuilding. One example is that at theNailsworth Brewery Maltings (see below),and another is recorded at the Kimberleybrewery's maltings.

It was the introduction of conveyors andelevators which eventually enabled multi-storey maltings to be built. The move-ment of grain meant less manual labourbut also greater ability to move largequantities of barley and malt around.Malthouse No 4 at Weymouth had acomplex conveying system, and manymalthouses had bucket elevatorsinstalled, often by well-known firms suchas Robert Boby.


Widespread Developments

The two developments specific to themalting industry and which had consider-able impact were in the location and con-struction of steeps and the design ofkilns. The former was initially governedby the Malt Tax, but the latter was not.

SteepsAt the beginning of the period, in 1837,steeping cisterns had to be constructedin accordance with the strict legislation.As a result they had to have flat bottoms,with a slope of no more than ½inch ineach foot, and a depth of no more than40 inches. The height above them had to

be 48 inches. The couch frame, the con-struction of which was also specified. hadto be next to the steep and again with aheight of 48 inches above it.5 Thus theemptying of the steep was by manuallythrowing the wetted grain out and direct-ly into the couch frame. This was a labourintensive procedure. It also tended to limitthe location of the steep, in the earliermaltings to the bottom floor, always agermination floor, and later maltings tothe middle floor. In this case it was possi-ble to throw the steeped, and couchedgrain onto the germination floor adjacentto the steep and couch and to let it downto the growing floor below via chutes, andit was possible to throw it up to an upper

Figure 7. Front of cast iron steeping cistern at Rigden’s Brewery Maltings, Faversham, Kent.


germination floor. The best example ofthis type of malthouse is Malthouse No 2at Weymouth.

The steeps were constructed of eitherstone, in the very small maltings, butmore usually of brick, and rendered towater proof them. Until the repeal of theMalt Tax in 1880 there was no possibilityof any other design of steep. Afterwards,hopper bottomed steeps became popularand this meant the use of new material forconstruction - cast iron, and later steel.Hopper bottomed steeps had two mainadvantages in that they were self empty-ing thereby reducing labour and theycould be located on an upper floor withtheir top in a barley storage area therebyreducing labour still further, for example atthe Goat Malting, which was PeterWalker's brewery maltings, in Clarence,Street, Burton-on-Trent. Even when hop-per bottomed steeps were not favoured,cast iron was still used for rectangularones, and these too often had hatchesinserted in the bottom so that they, liketheir hopper bottomed counter parts,could be emptied straight onto the floorbelow. Examples of this type are known tohave existed at Rigden's BreweryMaltings in Faversham. Kent [Fig. 7], andat the old Maltings, at Warwick's AnchorBrewery, Langthorpe, Boroughbridge,North Yorkshire (converted to resi-dences).

KilnsThe first problem in considering kilndevelopment until the later period is thatof allocating a kiln to a specific date. Even

when the malthouse can be dated it has tobe borne in mind that the kiln may not beof the same date. Kilns were changed andaltered no doubt to improve their efficiencybut also possibly because they were poor-ly or inadequately constructed in the firstplace. Broadly speaking, however, kilnswere either open furnaces with no doors,or they were furnaces with doors, or theywere fire basket furnaces.

These kilns continued in use but as newmaltings were built, especially in the lastquarter of the 19th century patent kilnswere used. There were three main pro-ducers of such kilns: Robert Boby of BurySt Edmunds, Robert Free of Mistley,Essex, and H.J.H. King of Nailsworth,Gloucestershire. The last mentioned firmalso produced heat regulators and waswell-known for their production. Twoothers produced kilns/kiln drying floors.The first was Bryan Corcoran who viedwith Robert Free and Henry Stopes forkiln developments. The second was E.S.Beaven who was better known for barleybreeding but was involved in kiln designat the time of the arsenic in beer problem.His patent kiln of which there is only oneknown example is to be found at hisWarminster Maltings in Pound Street,Warminster. The maltings still operatesbut not using his kiln which is well-pre-served. The only examples of RobertFree's kilns to survive were those in hisown maltings at Mistley, but there wereexamples of Boby's Kilns at Ketton(demolished/converted) in Rutland [Fig.8], and at Beeston. H.J.H. King's kilns areknown to have existed at the Cirencester


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Not only were there developments infurnace construction but also in kiln dry-ing floor construction. There were twomain developments. The first was theprogression from perforated ceramic kilntile drying floors to wedge wire dryingfloors, although the former did remainpopular and in use until the end of the20th century. The flow of air through thewedge wire being far greater thanthrough the perforated tiles. The seconddevelopment was the introduction ofdouble floored kilns, for exampleMerchants Road, Gloucester. The suc-cess of these is doubtful, certainly in the19th century, as most examples whichstill survive seem to have ended upusing only one of the floors, or the kilnitself only remained in use for a shorttime. Also there were improvements inthe draw of air up through the kiln dryingfloors by the introduction of fans in thecowls, for example Blackman's fans.6

Specific DevelopmentsThere were of course many other devel-opments, but one improvement whichdoes deserve mention is Last's PatentVentilating system. There is only oneknown example of this in Malthouse No4 at Weymouth and it resulted in thebuilding, now converted to residencesbeing upgrade and listed as Grade II*[Figs. 10 & 11]. The most easily avail-able description is to be found in H.E.Wright's A Handy Book for Brewers. The

second edition of 1897 states at page 71that it was dependent on the draughtcreated by the rush of air through thekiln fires. The arrangement consisted ofa series of openings made in the shortwall at the kiln end of each floor (adozen or more to each floor) whichopenings have falling doors to closethem. These apertures open into thespace surrounding the kiln (the dunge).At the opposite end, (the cistern end)are similar openings but less numerousfor admitting air from the outside andobtaining a longitudinal air current.Malthouse No 4 at Weymouth has theopenings as described on each growingfloor but not as many as 12. The originalplans showed 24 apertures in the wall ofthe northwest kiln dunge and 18 in thewall of the northeast kiln dunge, how-ever in this latter wall there was dooraccess to the growing floors. In thenorthwest kiln it would appear that therewere 12 apertures to the bottom growingfloor, eight to the middle and four to thetop, rather less on the top two floorsthan the description! However, thedescription does not give the kiln size,so this may have been a smaller kiln orperhaps reality did not match theory.This malthouse, like Malthouse No 2was designed by G.R. Crickmay. In theouter wall, at the opposite end from thekiln there are just 6 apertures to each ofthe top two growing floors, making 12 inall. The apertures at the other end of thegrowing floors appear to have been builtin accordance with the architect's plans.


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The Innovators

Although hopper bottomed or self-empty-ing steeps came to be widely used, twomen in particular were known to specifi-cally promote them. They were HenryStopes and Robert Free. There was cer-tainly rivalry between these two men whoboth came from Essex and who both diedin 1902, Robert Free on 24 January, andHenry Stopes on 5 December.7 Each issufficiently important for space to bedevoted to them.

Henry StopesHenry Stopes is probably best know forhis book Malt and Malting published in1885. This book became, in the later 19th

century, almost the maltster's bible. Itcontained details on all aspects of malt-ings including the construction of malt-ings, the various types of kiln, details ofminor and major pieces of equipment,and on what malt is and how it should bemade, and some details on the history ofmalt. He was a great believer in a varietyof improvements and in particular was agreat advocate of self -emptying hopperbottomed steeps and double kiln dryingfloors.

He did design whole maltings but hisforte seems to have been malthouseimprovements. One example of his com-plete design is William Jones's Belle VueMaltings in Shrewsbury. The building hasbeen converted to offices, and probablyno complete record of it now exists. Anexample of his kiln design is also to befound in Shrewsbury in another of William

Jones's maltings at a building far betterknow for other reasons, Bage'sDitherington Flax Mill which in 1884 wasconverted for use as a maltings by theinsertion of cast iron hopper bottomedsteeps and a double kiln drying floor todesigns by Stopes. The double floor sur-vived but had not been in use when malt-ing ceased on the site in 1984. It has tobe admitted that the kiln, the visible partof Stopes' work was essentially function-al and certainly not attractive.

The Brewers' Journal records a numberof works with which Stopes was appar-ently involved. In 1882 these included: amalthouse for Tamplin's Brewery atBrighton where a double kiln wasinstalled and then one for the maltstersGiradot, Flinn & Co of Bishops Stortford.8Two years later Stopes was involved inthe building of new kilns or the improve-ment of existing ones at Cameron's ofHartlepool, Messrs Crisp & Son, Beccles,Flowers & Sons at Stratford-upon-Avon,a seventh kiln for Giradot, Flinn & Co ofBishops Stortford, J. Green of Luton, J.Legg of Bridport, A Leney & Co of Dover,a second kiln, Morrells Trustees, Oxford(Morrells Brewery held Stopes' plans ofthese improvements), Phipps and Co ofNorthampton, T. Ramsden & Sons,Halifax, and The Redruth Brewery Co,Redruth.9 Subsequent years of theBrewers' Journal give similar reports.There can be little doubt that Stopes hada substantial impact on the design ofmaltings whether large or small.

An extremely small example of his work

survives at two malthouses in Nailsworthwhich is surprisingly well-documented. In1883 a reference in the Brewers' Journal(page 149 refers to the work being under-taken by Messrs H. Stopes and Co andthis included being ‘engaged in adaptingto their plans the malthouses and kilns ofMessrs Clissold & Sons, [Brewers]Nailsworth’. Unusually for a small townbrewery, it was visited by Alfred Barnardand a record of his visit is to be found inhis Noted Breweries of Great Britain andIreland. He noted that there were twomalthouses located some 100 yards fromthe brewery and that they were of 15 and30 quarter steep capacity. The No 2 malt-house had been recently built and was 80feet in length and 32 feet in width and con-tained two cement steeps. The floors inboth malthouses were laid with asphaltand they were lighted with eight ventilatingwindows. The ceilings were supported onstout cast iron columns. Over the growingfloors were spacious barley garners andmalt stores. The kiln was a double oneand both drying floors were laid withHermann's patent wire flooring, and thegreen malt was delivered by a chain hoistworked by a gas engine. In the roof was agangway on which the barley waswheeled in bins. No 1 [malthouse] kilnlogie contained two open furnacesenclosed in brick chambers which were fit-ted with patent draught regulators andheat dispersers. The kilns' heat regulatorswere supplied by H.J.H. King according totheir catalogue for 1906.10

Robert FreeRobert Free was a practising maltster and

innovator. His malting business wasestablished with Mr Rodwell in Mistley,and at Thorpe-le-Soken, Essex. TheThorpe-le-Soken maltings consisted oftwo built end to end, in 1875 and theywere able to take advantage of the railway.Those at Mistley, and eventually therewere seven, were built at a later date,mainly in the 1880s and the 1890s, withthe last one, Malthouse No 7 being built inthe first decade of the 20th century. All areor were impressive buildings, but Nos 1, 3,4 and 7 being larger and with more floorsthan any others ever built in England.Malthouse No 1 on Mistley Quayside hadeight floors, separate barley stores, anengine house with a massive chimney,and two barley kilns. It was built in 1897but damaged by fire the following year.11

Malthouses Nos 3 and 4 in School Lanewere built nine years earlier in 1888 andwere of five floors.12 Although near to thequayside these two malthouses had nodirect access and did not have a rail link(despite the illustration). From the maltingpoint of view they were without a barleykiln. This was rectified when Malthouse No7 was built adjacent to Nos 3 and 4 andlinked by a gantry.

The survival of these malthouse is mixed.Malthouse No 1 with its barley stores andbarley kiln has been converted to mixeduse. Malthouse Nos 3 and 4 have beenconverted to residences, although most ofNo 4 was demolished in this process andNo 7 which was damaged by fire in April1995 has been demolished. MalthouseNos 5 and 6 further up Mistley have quayminimal remains surviving. Malthouse No


2 does survive and is the only one stillconnected with the malting industry asEDME, producers of malt extract is onthe site.

It is known that in Malthouse Nos 1, 3, 4and 7 that Free installed his patentkilns.13 The Brewers' Journal also hasreferences to other malthouses installingFree's patent kilns,14 and to hispatents.15 With regard to the hopper bot-tomed steeps, these did exist inMalthouse Nos 3, 4 and 7, as well as No1. The latter is the only one which hasbeen recorded. Free's patent for steepingcisterns was taken out in 1882.

Pneumatic Maltings

Probably the most important develop-ment during the Victorian period was thedevelopment of the pneumatic system ofproducing malt. Today pneumatic maltingis synonymous with a pneumatic andmechanical system. This was not alwaysthe case and the early attempts to usepneumatic systems did not include themechanical turning of the grain whichwas still turned manually.16

Also, it has to be admitted that pneumat-ic malting was never particularly success-ful in England until the second half of the20th century. Although pneumatic maltingis primarily associated with the last quar-ter of the 19th century, the first innovatorin this line was Patrick Stead a success-ful Suffolk maltster of Scottish originswho in 1842 patented a pneumatic

method of malting. Some plans of hisHalesworth maltings do survive, but hisattempts at pneumatic malting were notsuccessful and were not pursued. All thatremains of his one substantial enterpriseis a small malting block on Quay Streetnow converted to residences.

There was then a gap of some thirtyyears before there was a further success-ful attempt at implementing a pneumaticmalting system, although there werelargely unsuccessful attempts notably byTizard. No known examples of his build-ings survive. The two systems whichwere eventually successful and remainedin use until the end of the 20th centurywere those of Galland and Saladin. Theformer produced the drum system ofmalting and the latter the box system. Inthe drum system the germinating grainwas placed in a drum which was rotatedto achieve the turning of the grain. In thebox system, the turning of the grain wasachieved by rotating screws being runbackwards and forwards in the box. Inthe box system air was forced throughthe perforated bottom of the box and inthe case of the drum system the air wasforced through a central air shaft.However, Galland's first pneumatic malt-ing system was not a drum malting but abox one, furthermore it was only pneu-matic not mechanical. The grain was stillturned by hand.

Galland's first pneumatic malting wasconstructed at Maxeville, near Nancy,France in 1873. It was then introducedinto Ireland at Roscrea for Messrs Perry


and Co. In England the first pneumaticmalting on Galland's box system was atBeeston, just outside Nottingham. It wasconstructed in 1878, for Messrs Waite,Corbould and Faulkner of the BeestonBrewery Company. It was closely fol-lowed by one for Messrs Flowers andSons at Stratford-upon-Avon, and therewas some contention as to which was thefirst, the one at Beeston or the one atStratford but it was generally acceptedthat the Beeston maltings was the firstpneumatic maltings. Two other pneumat-ic maltings on the same system wereconstructed shortly afterwards, firstly forNimmo and Sons at the Castle EdenBrewery, County Durham, and then

slightly later for Messrs Sedgwick and Coat Watford.

Of these examples, the only buildingknown to survive with at least its originalshell is that at Beeston [Fig. 12]. Thepneumatic maltings were part of theBeeston Brewery Company's premises,and the whole process appears to havebeen undertaken in one building. It is dif-ficult to determine how successful it was,although an extension was proposed in1884.17 The whole building was convert-ed to a floor malting for the Nottinghambrewers Shipstone's in 1926. What hap-pened to the other pneumatic maltings isnot known.


Figure 12. Beeston Maltings, Nottingham - the first pneumatic maltings in Britain.

It is generally believed that the next suc-cessful pneumatic plant was the firstSaladin Box plant built at Wainford,Ditchingham, Norfolk for R.W. Mann andoperational in 1891. It survived into thelast quarter of the 20th century but wasdemolished in the 1980s. However, refer-ences in the Brewers' Journal indicatethat in the mid 1880s pneumatic maltingswere under construction and that theWainford box maltings may not havebeen the first. In 1884 there is a refer-ence to the building of a new malthousefor a Mr L.. Brutton at Yeovil on the‘improved pneumatic and Stopes sys-tem’.18 The costs included ‘machinery inthe basement - J. Saladin, Nancy £667.0s. 0d..’ The exterior of the malthousewas illustrated as the frontispiece inStopes' book Malt and Malting. It is alsoworth noting that an illustration in theBrewers' Journal for the previous year,1883, shows a Stopes/Saladin box withturning screws.19 So clearly there wasthe theory available to construct a pneu-matic maltings on the box principle butwhether it worked is not known!

Likewise is has generally been acceptedthat the first drum malting plant was builtfor H.A. and D. Taylor at Lower Sheeringin Essex. The first reference to its con-struction comes in the Brewers' Journalin 1894 when the plant designed byInskipp and MacKenzie was under con-struction.20 Work was completed and themalting was operation in 1896 when itwas illustrated in the Brewers' Journal.This building does survive but has beenconverted to residences. However, again,

as in the case of box malting, there is anearlier reference to drum maltings in theBrewers' Journal, in 1891 when aGalland drum maltings was constructedfor the distillery of Messrs Haigh and Coat Hammersmith, London.21

What is clear from a perusal of theBrewers' Journal, and it has to beremembered that by no means everypneumatic maltings constructed wasnoted in this publication, is that it was pri-marily brewers and distillers who wereprepared to invest in pneumatic plant.22

The method favoured appears to havebeen the drum malting system, althoughagain this may only be a reflection ofwhat was reported in the Brewers'Journal. The one exception was theabove mentioned malting for H.A. and D.Taylor. The reason for the apparent reluc-tant up take may lie in some of the histo-ry of the Wainford Saladin Box maltings.Its building and opening may not havebeen reported in the Brewers' Journal,but the financial demise of its ownerswas. In 1906 just 15 years after it startedoperating, the failure of R. & W. Mann,Suffolk maltsters of Ditchingham wasreported and the cause of the ‘failure’was given as ‘heavy cost of pneumaticmalting erected in 1891 and the fall in thevalue of our property’. The cost of thepneumatic malting was ‘£15,000 andupwards’ whereas they had been led tobelieve the cost would be about£8,000.23 Indeed even in the 20th centu-ry Ross Mackenzie noted ‘the initial costof installing the pneumatic system isappreciably higher than the primary


expenditure on the floor method, and thelatter is maintained and worked moreeconomically.’24

The true extent of England's early pneu-matic maltings will never be known. Afteran initial first flurry of building of pneu-matic, but not mechanical plant in theearly 1880s, there was a gap of severalyears before pneumatic and mechanicalwere constructed. Even then the uptakewas relatively slow and pneumatic malt-ing was never as popular as the floormaltings which continued to dominate themaltings built in the Victorian period.

Conclusions

The malting industry is a notoriously con-servative one. At the beginning of theperiod malthouses of two to four storeyswere being built, whereas at the end ofthe period they were built with three toeight storeys. Generally there was anoverall increase in size and smaller malt-houses tended to be squeezed out ofbusiness. The repeal of the malt tax in1880 which enabled hopper bottomedand self emptying steeps to be used,helped to permit the increase in size, butthis was not the only factor. Theincreased use of power and the elevationand conveying of grain (barley and malt)were also major factors in the increase inmalthouse size. There was progress inother features such as kiln design andventilation. There was certainly innova-tion by a number of men, notably HenryStopes and Robert Free, and there were

numerous patents, many of which wereprobably not successful. By the end ofthe period fully pneumatic and mechani-cal maltings were in operation, but formany maltsters and even brewers, theoutlay was too great an expense. Theseeds of change had been sown, but realchange, however, did not come until longafter the demise of the Victorian period.

Bibliography

Barnard, A. (1889 - 1896) The NotedBreweries of Great Britain and Ireland.Causton

Brown, J. (1983) Steeped in Tradition:The malting industry in England since the rail-way age. University of Reading

Cooksey, J. (1984) Brewery Buildings inBurton-on-Trent. The Victorian Society

Patrick, A. (1996) ‘Establishing aTypology for the buildings of the Floor MaltingIndustry’. Industrial Archaeology Review, 18(2), 180-200.

Stopes, H. (1885) Malt and Malting,London

Brewers’ Journal.

My records on some 400 malthouses, rangingin date from c 1500 to c 1970.

References

1. Patrick, A. (1996) ‘Establishing aTypology for the buildings of the Floor MaltingIndustry’. Industrial Archaeology Review, 18(2), 180-200.


2. See National Monuments Record, NBR95749.

3. See Alderton, D. (2005) ‘The chickenor the Egg? The Relationship BetweenIndustry and Transport in East Anglia’.Industrial Archaeology Review, 27 (1), 121-128.

4. For example the 18th century malt-house and kiln at Brockhampton,Gloucestershire continued in production until1939.

5. See Ford, W. (1862) A PracticalTreatise on Malting and Brewing with anHistorical Account of the Malt Trade and lawsdeduced from 40 years experience. London,156 et seq.

6. See Stopes, 205 for an illustration of aBlackman fan.

7. Brewers' Journal for 1902, 75 and 700respectively.

8. Brewers' Journal for 1882, pages 14and 218 respectively.

9. Brewers' Journal for 1884, 315.10.When this paper was given as a lec-

ture on 25 February 2006, I commented thatthese malthouses were not protected, that isthey were not listed. Therefore, it will be ofinterest to readers to know that in my post onmy return home was a notification that theyhad been listed, on 20 February 2006, atGrade II.

11. Brewers' Journal for 1897, 34 and for1898, 390.

12. Brewers' Journal for 1888, Octoberillustration.

13. The kilns in these malthouses wereseen by the author as follows: Malthouses 3,4 and 7 in July 1993 and Malthouse No 1 inMarch and August 2000.

14. Brewers' Journal for 1884, 252 refersto Messrs Benskin & Co of Watford erecting anew maltings fitted with double drying floorson Free's patent system.

15. Brewers' Journal for 1888, 107 refersto Free's patent for ‘improvement in kilns fordrying malt’.

16. See the Brewers' Journal for 1878,332, and the Brewers' Guardian for 1878, 353for a description of pneumatic malting at thisdate.

17. Brewers' Journal for 1884, 356.18. Brewers' Journal for 1884, 213.19. Brewers' Journal for 1883, 348.20. Brewers' Journal for 1894, 334.21. Brewers' Journal for 1891, 149.22.Of some 18 pneumatic maltings con-

structed in England and noted in the Brewers'Journal, only two were for maltsters. The restwere for brewers or distillers.

23. Brewers' Journal for 1906, 115.24. Ross Mackenzie, J. (1921) Brewing

and Malting. Pitman, London, 26.


Documents

Amber Patrick - Brewery Historybreweryhistory.com/journal/archive/123/Malting.pdf · The Bass Maltings, Sleaford, Lincolnshire. Brewery History Number 123 Summer 2006 17 despite substantial