Shrewsbury Flaxmill Maltings: Dyehouse and Stove House

Former Dyehouse and Stove House at the Shrewsbury Flaxmill, dating from the early 1850s and pre-1810 respectively. The Dyehouse was altered in the late 19th century to a barley drying house, and the Stove House was enlarged and rebuilt in the 1840s. These buildings formed part of a former flax mill designed by Charles Bage and owned and operated by Marshall, Benyon and Bage. The mill was constructed in two major phases of 1796-7 and between 1809 and 1812, with later additions and alterations. The complex was converted and extended to a maltings in 1897-8.

The Dyehouse is built of red brick, with two parallel roofs of asbestos corrugated cladding and Welsh slate featuring a hipped north end and continuous ridge roof lights raised above clerestory ventilators. Most of its openings were boarded over in 2015. It is a double-depth building with a square plan and single storey height. Its principal east elevation presents a striking arcade of twelve bays with pilastered brickwork, arcaded panels, and projecting imposts and keystones. Each bay contains a large window opening with cambered arches and projecting stone cills, with a dentilled eaves cornice. The right return displays a mix of flat- and arch-headed windows and doorways, including a taking-in door below the eaves. Rising above the roof is a former late-19th century grain hoist tower of brick and corrugated cladding with a gabled corrugated roof and two timber windows. The east elevation is plainer with a number of window openings. On the roof are two further hoist towers projecting out over a former railway siding, each weatherboarded with a slate roof, wooden finials to the apex, and a timber window to the gable end. Two further hoist towers at the southern end of the dyehouse roof include one clad and roofed in corrugated sheeting and another weatherboarded with finials to the gable apexes.

The Dyehouse interior is a large, well-lit space open to the roof, with the valley beam carried on five tall Doric cast-iron columns. A further series of columns support horizontal beams for a mezzanine floor inserted during the conversion to a maltings, though the floor itself has been removed. The lightweight, wide-span roof demonstrates sophisticated design using the different structural properties of cast and wrought iron. It comprises slender, rectangular-section wrought-iron principals with ornate, angled compression struts and a system of wrought-iron ties. The slate roof covering is wired to iron laths located in clots in the upper edges of the principals, avoiding the use of timber completely.

The Stove House is also built of brick, including some great bricks measuring approximately 100mm x 110mm x 240mm, with a gabled slate roof. It has a rectangular plan of three storeys with attached ranges of two and one storeys respectively to the west; the former was probably semi-open and the westernmost is a mid-20th century addition. The principal elevation faces east with five bays, though most of its windows have been blocked and a large part of the ground-floor brickwork has been rebuilt with added buttresses, reflecting changes made over time. The left bay contains a ground-floor entrance with a taking-in door above it and a window to the upper floor, all with segmental heads. The south elevation has an inserted doorway and a window to each floor above in the east gable end. The central section is blind and has lost its roof, while the far left contains a mid-20th century flat-roofed addition of red brick with various openings under concrete lintels.

The three-storey part of the Stove House internally features an internally-framed west wall of cylindrical cast-iron columns and I-section beams joined by short spigots. The frame formerly supported the west ends of the floor beams which spanned the building; these beams have since been removed, though the attic floor beams survive. The upper floors are accessed from wooden stairs. Its roof has two-piece cast-iron trusses and cast-iron purlins. The central section of the Stove House is roofless and the floor has been removed. A doorway in its north wall leads into the Dyehouse, and a wide opening in the west wall provides access to the mid-20th century addition.

The following features are not considered to be of special architectural or historic interest: the mid-20th century flat-roofed addition to the west end of the Stove House; the brick and corrugated sheeting clad hoist tower at the northern end of the Dyehouse; the corrugated sheeting clad hoist tower at the junction between the southern end of the Dye House and the north end of the Stove House; the 20th century veranda or open-sided shelter against the south gable wall of the Dyehouse; and the 20th century internal metal framework of a former mezzanine within the Dyehouse.