The Maltings

Bordered on 2 sides by Barn Meadow, the buildings are clearly recognisable as they still retain characteristic malting features such as the distinctive kiln hoods and long elevations with regularly spaced windows.

Few external alterations have been made since the closure of the Weller Brewery in 1929 which adds to the site’s significance, particularly as Historic England believes that only 10 to 15% of identifiable maltings survive.

A sympathetic development would enable these maltings to be better appreciated within the town, but it is vital that any conversion retains the identifying features so that there is more than just a name to indicate the building’s former use.

Maltings Yard

It is not widely known that the Maltings also provided homes for many generations of Amersham families. There were cottages for the maltsters who needed to be close to their kilns and for the draymen who stabled their enormous dray horses in the complex.

When the brewery was sold to Benskins, drayman William Hance had been living there for over 20 years, the Bryants and the Greens for over 30 years, and nightwatchman George North and his wife Sarah (née Green) for 14 years. Before that many other families lived on the site. Ann Gomm lived there for nearly 70 years when her husband, Ephraim and her son and grandson, both called Fred, worked for the brewery. After Ephraim’s death, she lived in one of the widows’ cottages for another 30 years working as a seamstress.

The site was also used for community events. Each year the Sprat Supper was hosted by Wellers when all the townsfolk were invited into the Maltings to eat fish fried on the steel malt shovels.

After the brewery

In 1930 Benskins auctioned the buildings. James Long, a boot manufacturer and property speculator who lived at Top O’ Th’ Hill (now Our Lady’s School) in Chesham Bois bought the Church Street premises and the Maltings with the idea of creating a glamorous country club and leisure centre. William Matthews, a successful builder from Chesham Bois invested in the club. An indoor swimming pool was built, and planning permission for badminton courts applied for. The storey above the growing floor was removed and a viewing gallery was created above an enormous maple dancefloor, but the project was never completed. Matthews died tragically on the railway in 1934 and Long decided to concentrate on converting the brewery buildings which did indeed become badminton courts and then a hotel.

New owners, Amersham Prints, converted the dancehall into a textile factory. During WWII they manufactured kite and convoy balloons, and emergency dinghies. More recently the complex was rented out as offices, light industrial units, and a gallery. Nevertheless, I imagine that any future development will at least be partly residential. I hope that children will again play in Maltings Yard, and that they will be told stories of the Weller draymen in their red tasselled hats, and will be able to imagine the sounds of the maltsters’ clogs and the dray horses’ hooves, ringing on the old cobblestones.

Article credits: Alison Baily

Photo Credits: Amersham Museum and Alison Baily

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