Pier Maltings

Pier Maltings

Maltings dating from around 1838, converted from an Oil House of around 1807, with extensions and further conversions during the 19th and 20th centuries. The building is constructed of coursed squared sandstone with ashlar quoins and dressings.

The main plan consists of a long rectangular range of thirteen bays, extended to the rear with malt kilns forming right and left returns.

The south elevation fronts Pier Road and comprises thirteen bays and three storeys beneath a pitched slate roof. Eight original bays feature a high chamfered plinth, while the five later bays have a less prominent single course low plinth. Window and door dressings differ between the original building and its extension—the former executed in smooth ashlar, the latter in roughly tooled stone. The original first floor loading door occupies the fifth bay with an inserted ground floor door beneath. The five bay extension contains a large segmental round-headed opening with an inserted loading door above. Modern windows and an external balcony occupy the third floor of the two westernmost bays, with an inserted ground floor window and rectangular entrance also present. The left gable of the main range has two second floor windows and an original ground floor entrance. The right gable has single first and second floor windows and an original ground floor entrance with relieving arch above.

An east return malt kiln has a pyramid roof and paired window openings with loading doors now converted to windows; the ground floor has inserted double garage doors. A small two-storey two-bay building, probably a malt store and now converted to a dwelling, forms the end of this range; it has a blocked first floor gable loading door. A larger square four-storied malt kiln with paired windows at all levels and a conical slate roof with vented apex forms the west return.

The north elevation is formed by a later three-storey range attached to the rear of the original range, with modern roof covering and roof lights, scattered fenestration, and several doorways to the rear.

The interior reflects the building's use as a maltings and retains evidence of at least two phases. It preserves the sites of two steeps, with storage and malting floors carried on cast iron and wooden columns of various types. The kiln interiors retain their characteristic cast iron floor beams. An inserted stair at the east end of the original building occupies the position of the original; the stair at the west end of the extended building is original. Several doors and trap doors of various dates are present throughout.

The eastern part of the present building appears on an 1822 map of Berwick by John Wood, described as an Oil House. The presence of an oil yard manufacturing whale oil is documented in Berwick between 1807 and 1837. Although this appears to have operated on the south side of the Tweed estuary, the Pier Road building must have been connected to it. A raised area to the rear of the maltings reportedly contains a very large number of whalebones, suggesting this building was associated with the production and storage of whale oil and is therefore significant in the context of the whaling trade.

Analysis of the main building elevation confirms that the original eight-bay oil house was extended westwards by five additional bays, a change documented by the 1852 Berwick Board of Health plan, which shows the extended building was by then Pier Head Malt House with its eastern kiln present. The original oil house was likely extended and converted to a maltings around 1838 when its oil function ceased, coinciding with the selling off of one of Berwick's two whaling boats in 1838, marking the winding up of the town's whaling interests. Map evidence also shows that between 1862 and 1898 the building received a three-storey extension to the rear and a second malt kiln was added to its western end. The building is recorded to have remained a maltings well into the 1920s and has subsequently been the site of a marquee business for many years.