The Britten Pears Building, Snape Maltings, Tunstall, Suffolk

Summary

Former mid-C19 barley germination and store for Newson Garrett, converted 1976-79 by Arup Associates to the Britten Pears building to house the School of Advanced Musical Studies. Partly refurbished in 2009-10 by Haworth Tomkins with Price and Myers.

Description

Former mid-C19 barley germination building and store for Newson Garrett, converted 1976-79 by Arup Associates to the Britten Pears building to house the School of Advanced Musical Studies. Partly refurbished in 2009-10 by Haworth Tomkins with Price and Myers.

Materials: red brick with gault brick piers, both brick types are thought to be from Newson Garrett's own brickworks in Aldeburgh. There’s a red clay pantile roof covering and timber doors and windows throughout. Iron pattress plates are evident along the length of the building.

Plan: the former store is rectangular in plan aligned east to west with a short single-story with attic (and basement) return at the eastern end and a single storey with attics return on the western end. Together the buildings form the southern, eastern and western range of a small courtyard with the concert hall forming the northern range.

Exterior: the character of the former barley store is maintained; it is of 17 bays and three storeys with a reduced height ventilated basement. Built of red brick, in a pier and panel design, with gault brick piers marking the bay divisions, the south elevation is punctuated by iron pattress plates regularly spaced along the length of the building, at internal ceiling height. The fenestration largely corresponds with original ventilation openings although now with C20 timber framed windows inserted except in the basement where iron grills allow for continued ventilation. All openings in the basement, ground floor and first floor have segmental arches, although the upper floor windows sit level with the eaves. Two timber doors and a total of four windows were inserted in the eastern gable at the time of conversion to the Britten Pears building. Four raking dormers, evenly spaced, remain along the south slope of the roof. The west gable is blind in all but two window openings on the ground floor and a tall lateral stack rises adjacent to this gable. Attached at this point, and forming the western range to the courtyard, are the remains of the former single storey turning gallery. This building is mainly used for storage with access via two C20 timber doors from within the courtyard. The other section, adjoined to the concert hall, is converted to offices and is accessible from within the concert hall. The western elevation of this range retains the rhythm of the original structure with 6 bays marked by segmental arched windows on the ground floor and raked dormers in the pan-tiled roof.

At the eastern end of the Britten Pears building the single storey range forming the eastern arm of the courtyard is similar in character to that on the western side. The fenestration replicates all other window openings with segmental arches on the ground floor and closely spaced raked dormers in the pantile roof. A doorway in the east elevation provides access to a small terrace.

Within the courtyard and attached to the northern elevation of the Britten Pears building is the late-C20 Peter Pears recital room. It is built of red brick with a pantile roof and a raised central roof with timber weatherboard cladding. The raised roof resembles the lucams and bluffs which are visible at various points across the maltings complex and is a clear reference to the industrial heritage of the site. Access is gained through a timber panelled, double-leaf door on the west elevation with two segmental arched windows adjacent.

Interior: access to the Britten Pears building is gained from a glazed timber door on the east end of the southern elevation. This grants access to a reception area and open plan reception rooms with C20 reception desk and fittings. The interior of the space is dominated by the brick jack-arches carried on cast iron beams which run across the building from north to south. The iron pattress plates on the exterior (and associated tie-rods) align with the jack-arches and will function as reinforcing elements to the strengthened floors above.

The ground and first floor, believed formerly to have been used as germination floors, would have been well ventilated open-plan spaces with little architectural embellishment. The jack-arched ceiling construction is replicated on the first floor but here the floor area has been subdivided in late-C20 to make individual practice rooms accessible from a corridor which runs along the length of the building from east to west. Despite the subdivisions the earlier function of the buildings is still legible. The second floor is dedicated to the Holst Library, the contents of which were donated by Imogen Holst, an artistic director of the Aldeburgh Festival from 1956-77. The library is a memorial to her father, Gustav Holst in gratitude for his music and teaching. This is a large open-plan space spanning almost the full length of the building. The simple open truss timber roof structure with imbedded purlins is exposed throughout. The trusses sit on simple sawn timber corbels. The vaulted brick ceilings of the ground and first floor mark the growing floors of the former barley store with this top floor used as storage. The internal carpentry, subdivisions and fixtures and fittings are C20 in design.

The single-story return at the eastern end of the Britten Pears building was refurbished by Haworth Tomkins with Price and Myers in 2009-10 and now houses the Trask Artists Café. At that time disabled access was also improved and access to an external terrace to the east was provided.

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. It had for centuries been an important deep-water quay providing trading links to London and beyond. From the end of the C18 the coal and corn merchant’s business of Osborne and Fennell operated from the wharf on the south bank of the river. Snape Bridge was rebuilt in 1802, the road improved, and the wharf greatly expanded. Newson Garrett (1812-1893) bought Fennell’s business and the adjoining pasture known as ‘Bridge Marsh’ in 1841 and set about expanding the venture. By 1844 Garrett had large warehouses and an extensive malting at Snape and was sending 17,000 quarts of barley a year to London and Newcastle brewers (White, 525). 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. Garrett’s diverse business interests extended far beyond malting; in 1855 he was described as a maltster, lime, coal and corn merchant, shipbuilder and brick and whiting manufacturer.

In the late 1850s Garrett persuaded the East Suffolk Railway to build a spur to the maltings by guaranteeing them regular freight, and a branch line was opened in 1859. Garrett seized this opportunity to greatly expand malting at Snape and embarked on a major building programme. In 1882, the company of Newson Garrett & Son was formed to run the Snape maltings site, with Newson’s son George Garrett as manager. Further new buildings were constructed at the maltings in the 1880s and 1890s, and others remodelled. A new signal box was constructed at the goods station, and several houses erected for maltings employees, together with a village hall and school. The New House or Kiln No.5 (now the Concert Hall) was the last of the kiln buildings to be constructed; its kilns used to dry pale malt for light-coloured beers. 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 military and admiralty made use of the wharf and siding at Snape Bridge, often to the detriment of the maltings business. 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. Newson Garrett & Son was merged with S Swonnell & Son in October 1918, a London firm of maltsters, and a large new barley store was constructed on the Bridge Road frontage.

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 store, still survives. 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; the railway goods shed, by then in poor repair, was demolished in 1957 and in March 1960 the railway itself finally closed. Swonnell & Son went into voluntary liquidation in 1965 and the maltings site, Plough & Sail public house, 27 dwellings in the village, and 32 acres of land were put up for sale. The maltings site 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 opera librettist and theatrical director Eric Crozier (1914-1994). The Aldeburgh Festival had used a variety of locations for concerts, but the established and growing popularity of the event necessitated a move to a larger and permanent home. After the Snape maltings site was acquired by Gooderham, Britten and Stephen Reiss, the manager of the Aldeburgh Festival identified an opportunity to convert the largest of the former malthouses into a concert hall and recording studio and approached Ove Arup and Partners for a survey. The resultant conversion, designed by Derek Sugden of Arup Associates, was carried out between 1966 and 1967, and the venue was opened by Her Majesty The Queen in June 1967. In 1969 a fire reduced the Concert Hall to an open shell, but with the help of a fund-raising appeal, was restored and re-opened as a venue in June 1970. The site has since been developed as a cultural destination, and in 2003 the Arts Council of England designated Aldeburgh as one of three centres of excellence in music provision.

In 1976 to commemorate the death of Benjamin Britten that year a former barley germination building and store adjacent to the concert hall was converted by Arup Associates (partner in charge Peter Foggo) into spaces for young singers or string players. Completed in 1979 it was named the Britten Pears building and houses the School for Advanced Musical Studies. Refurbishment works by Haworth Tompkins with Price and Myers in 2009-2010 added a new artists café with an external terrace to its east. It also includes the Peter Pears Recital room.

Reasons for Listing

The former mid-C19 barley germination building and store converted 1976-79 by Arup Associates to the Britten Pears building to house the School of Advanced Musical Studies is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural Interest:

* as a former industrial building which has undergone some alteration in its conversion to The Britten Pears building, but retains its original plan form and features pertaining to its former use as a maltings;
* as one of a distinctive group of buildings constructed by local craftsmen using local building materials, including red and white bricks from Garrett’s own brickworks at Aldeburgh;
* as tangible evidence of the industrial success of Snape Maltings in the mid- and late-C19, the largest maltings in Suffolk;

Historic Interest:

* as a building to commemorate Benjamin Britten a central and influential figure in C20 British music who was born and raised in Suffolk;

* for its contribution to the national and international success of Snape Maltings as a centre for music excellence and a cultural destination.

Group Value:

* for its strong group value with other listed buildings on the Snape Maltings site, including the complex of former malting buildings fronting Snape Bridge Road, Snape Bridge House, and former Granaries all listed at Grade II and the Concert Hall listed at Grade II*.

External Links

Historic England Listing

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