Snape Maltings

Converting the buildings to new uses without destroying their unique character presents a whole range of challenges, and our dialogue with English Heritage and Suffolk Coastal planning officers has been central to the project. Together we have developed a response to the Maltings which gives them a new future while preserving the simple and harmonious relationship between the industrial architecture and the powerful landscape of the coast. Paddy Dillon, Haworth Tompkins

The process of designing and converting these beautiful, historic buildings has involved many stakeholders and advisers, including English Heritage and Suffolk Coastal District Council. The building work is now very advanced and it is clear that new life is being successfully brought to this site, whilst maintaining its unique character. Jonathan Reekie, Chief Executive Aldeburgh Music

Built by Newson Garrett in the mid-19th century, Snape Maltings is an impressive complex of grade II listed buildings and was, until it closed in 1965, one of the largest barley maltings in East Anglia. Though one of the maltings has been used as a concert hall by Aldeburgh Music since this time, and other structures have been converted into shops and holiday accommodation, the majority of the buildings on this massive four hectare site remained redundant and in desperately poor condition.

English Heritage was invited to join local authority, developer and architect in extensive pre-application discussions to help devise a scheme that acknowledged and responded to the heritage values of the existing buildings and their relationship with the landscape. These values lay in the buildings’ layout and relationship to each other, in the mass and design of the individual structures and in the way they tell the evolving story of the maltings process over the 19th and 20th centuries. We used our understanding of the site to help identify the opportunity for possible interventions: for example identifying where internal fabric had been lost and therefore where a greater level of change could be accommodated. Changes to the external fabric were kept to a minimum in order to retain the character of the individual buildings.

The motivation of the owner and developers, and the desire of all parties to see the buildings repaired and re-used, kept momentum going. The condition of the buildings was at tipping point. Balanced decisions were made by the local authority that wouldn’t compromise either the historic fabric or the financial viability of the project. Without a constructive approach to conservation, the project might have foundered and the historic buildings would have been lost. The resulting proposals for conversion and re-use will bring people to live and shop in the area, and will enable Aldeburgh Music to expand their operations and generate a new creative centre for music and the arts. Consent has now been granted and works have begun on site.