Clementhorpe Maltings

Clementhorpe Maltings is a late 19th-century maltings building with 20th-century alterations, constructed in red brick with plain tile roofs. It is located on Lower Ebor Street in York.

The building is a rectangular structure aligned north-south, comprising a three-storey malthouse with a drying kiln at the south end. The malthouse contained growing floors on the ground and first floors, with a steep at the north end of the first floor, malt storage bins on the second floor, and a loft floor for storage of bagged barley. A hoist door is positioned at the north end of the west elevation.

The south elevation faces Lower Ebor Street and features the kiln front with an inserted central pair of plank doors beneath a concrete lintel. To the left is a single small window and to the right a similar blocked opening, both with brick lintels. Above these are three openings, the central and right ones containing original windows with wooden shutters to the lower part and three horizontal lights over. The left opening is now blocked. All have projecting sills and brick lintels. The wall above has been heightened, with the outline of three window openings visible in the brickwork. The kiln section has a pyramidal roof topped with a tall square kiln cowl.

The west elevation shows ragged brickwork at the north-west corner. From north to south it features a single hoist door on the second floor with a hoist hood supported on cast-iron brackets, followed by five small windows. The three windows to the left have two-light casements, while the two to the right have shutters to the lower part and match those on the south elevation. The first floor contains a blocked opening, a modern double door, and three blocked openings aligned with the top-floor windows. The ground floor also has blocked openings aligned with those above. The kiln to the right has blocked openings and a wide shallow window on the top floor, now boarded over.

The east elevation has the kiln to the left with a 20th-century opening at the far left and a window at ground and middle floor levels, aligned vertically. The malthouse has three irregularly placed windows on both ground and first floors. All ground-floor windows have shuttered openings below and three small lights above. First-floor windows are boarded over. The top floor has grilles.

The north elevation is of more modern brickwork with a small blind gable to the left. The remainder is three storeys high, with a sunken ground-floor doorway to the right and a blocked window to the left, above two shuttered openings and above again two similar openings now boarded.

A central elevator block is located on the roof between the kiln and malthouse, weatherboarded with a corrugated iron roof.

The interior contains a kiln furnace centrally located against a brick wall separating the kiln from the malthouse. This furnace was manufactured by H J H King of Nailsworth, Gloucestershire. A wire wedge drying floor is present. The brick dividing wall has a doorway on the west side. The malthouse comprises two growing floors three bays wide with two rows of cast-iron columns forming nine bays in length. At the north end of the ground floor are three H-section girders to each row instead of columns, indicating a partial floor collapse at an unknown date. A stop cock for the steep is located in the north-west corner of the ground floor. At the north end of the first floor is a rectangular cast-iron steeping cistern, with an iron water main brought along the length of the building against the west wall (partially broken). The top floor is absent between the first bay over the steep and the fourth bay, which now houses a dressing machine by Nalder and Nalder. To the south are solid wooden malt storage bins with sliding doors facing onto a corridor on the west side of the building. The loft floor has timber construction with a queen post roof with raking struts. Associated machinery includes a double bucket elevator for moving steeped barley from the growing floors to the kiln.

Clementhorpe Maltings was built in the late 19th century, appearing on the 1892 Ordnance Survey map marked as Malthouse. In 1895 the maltings was operated by the Tadcaster Tower Brewery Company Ltd, formed in 1882 from the amalgamation of three local breweries. Changes in the external brickwork indicate a heightening of the kiln, probably dating from the early 20th century when the H J H King furnace was installed. The Tadcaster Tower Brewery Company Ltd continued to use the maltings until the late 1950s.