Red brick-built single storey malthouse with attic storey and gable ends. The building is of 14 bays with louvred windows along both long axis and a gabled lucam on the roadside facade. Internally two rows of slender cast iron columns support the wooden attic floor and the ground floor is made up of stone flags. The brick-built steeping pit lies at the east end of the building, but the kiln which stood at the west end has been demolished. A wooden ladder provides access to the attic storey. Barley was delivered and malt dispatched through the gabled taking-in door; the attic would have been used for storage. A small opening in the floor of the attic was used to deliver the barley into the steep; the kiln was loaded and emptied from an opening in the east gable. Various items of machinery survive within the attic. The malting was erected in the mid-19th century to serve the neighbouring West Bergholt Brewery.
ARCHAEOLOGICAL POTENTIAL: Although the building has lost its kiln, it retains many important technological features including the steep and various items of machinery. The operation and process flow can be deduced from the surviving features.
SITE SIGNIFICANCE: A good example of a small rural 19th century malting and one of the few surviving Essex examples with important internal features. Buildings of this type have normally been stripped or converted into domestic dwellings.
MANAGEMENT: The malting is in urgent need of repairs and many of the roof tiles are missing. A sympathetic residential conversion is probably the best course of action, but this will result in the loss of many important features including the steeping pit. A level 2 record has been made by the RCHME, but if proposals are submitted to convert the malting a section should be drawn through the length and breadth of the building. Any groundworks at the eastern end of the building should be monitored by an archaeologist as parts of the kiln may be exposed. The machinery should be sent to a museum. <1>.