329 Whapload Road

This is a mid-17th century salt store that was extended in the late 17th or early 18th century to serve as a fish smoke house.

Materials and Construction

The building is constructed of local red bricks and courses of washed cobbles or beach stone, rendered in a preservative coating of tar. The roof is covered with unglazed clay pantiles.

Plan and Layout

The building has a long, narrow rectangular plan aligned east-west at right angles to Whapload Road and is divided into three main parts. The small square section at the western end is the mid-17th century salt store, which originally stood free. The other two sections form the main late 17th or early 18th century range. The central section is subdivided into three broadly equal square chambers that were formerly linked by openings in the brick partitions. The eastern section is a single space with a small compartment at the western end created by the insertion of a staircase.

Exterior

The three-storey building has a steeply pitched roof and is divided into three sections. The salt store at the western end has thinner exterior walls than those of the main range, and the beach stone coursing is more regular. The blind gable end and south elevation of the salt store are both formed of decorative courses of red brick headers and triplets of beach stones set in a loose mortar. A lean-to corrugated iron shed has been built against the south elevation, in which the door opening and now blocked mullion ventilator both appear to be in their original positions. Inserted courses of red bricks indicate that the roof has been raised.

The long central section has a slightly higher roofline which was either raised or substantially repaired in the 19th century. On the south elevation the lower half has been covered in thick cement render. This part of the building has been subject to numerous repairs or alterations, and the irregularly positioned apertures are currently boarded over. Above the ground-floor openings, a row of 17 sockets indicate the former location of a timber balcony, a common feature amongst the fishing buildings of the east coast where it provided space to hang nets to dry. A first-floor door on the far left of this central section indicates that access to the smokehouse was also gained via the balcony. To the right are two blocked openings which originated as mullioned ventilator openings, followed by a doorway and two large windows, all under segmental brick arches. Above, there is a row of three mullioned ventilators.

The eastern section of the building is constructed of irregular courses of red brick and beach stone cobbles which extend to the eaves, suggesting the proportions remain broadly as originally constructed. The south elevation appears to have once had doors at its western and eastern ends, but 20th century alterations have seen the former repurposed to access stairs to the first floor, and the latter infilled and replaced by a window. In between there are two ground-floor, diamond-profile mullioned ventilators which appear to be early 19th century in date. At first-floor level, the windows are of varying sizes but all under flat brick arches. The two smaller windows to the left appear to date from the insertion of the staircase, whilst the two to the right have modern frames but their openings are 18th century. In between these is a large taking-in door with a hoist dating to the mid-20th century.

The northern elevation formed the boundary wall of the site and as such has far fewer openings. In the central section there is only a pair of blocked ventilators beneath the eaves. This is replicated on the eastern section which is also lit at first-floor level by two casement windows with modern frames. Between these, a plain square brick chimney rises through the eaves.

The east gable end has experienced the most alteration and appears to have been rebuilt. The present arrangement of three first-floor windows beneath flat brick arches and a taking-in door for the attic appears to date from the 19th century, although the window frames are modern replacements.

Interior

The eastern section of the building is devoid of internal divisions on the ground floor. This, together with the unshuttered ventilators and cambered stone sett floor with drainage channel, suggests that it was a roaring or roasting house in which the herring were heaped upon the floor from the boats and covered in salt for five or six days before being washed and hung on wooden spits ready for smoking. The internal face of the northern wall, formed of irregular courses of brick and beach stone, is original, whilst the southern wall of brick is likely to be of early 19th century date. The space is ceiled by the first-floor surface above, comprised of simple machine cut softwood joists and floorboards which are a more recent replacement.

The central section is divided into three equally sized, broadly square rooms. Originally an undivided space, the dividing walls which rise from the ground to the apex of the roof were inserted, most likely in the early 19th century, to create smaller compartments to give greater control over the smoking process. The smoke bays each have their own external access door and each interconnected with the neighbouring bays via doors in the partitions which have been filled in. The beach stones in the walls, the stone sett floors and elements of the timber frames which formed the first-floor surface are all smoke blackened, as the fires would have been set directly on the stone setts.

On the first and second floors of this central section, where the early 19th century brick partition walls have not been obscured by later panelling, the timber racks or loves are visible where they have been integrated into the brick coursing to provide the end rack for each smoking compartment. Otherwise the loves have been removed as part of the reconfiguration from fish smoking to storage. Above the first-floor bays, a second floor has been partially inserted at a later date, comprised of a mixture of sawn softwood beams, reused telegraph poles and ex situ timbers. It retains a full floor above the eastern bay and a partially boarded floor above the central bay, but there is no floor above the western bay.

At second-floor level in the central section of the building, all three bays retain the racks or loves of the smoke house which survive in situ and largely complete. Each smoking love comprises three vertical struts – the central one intersecting with the apex of the roof – into which trenches have been cut to receive the horizontal members which have been pegged into place. In addition to providing the racks to hang the spits of each herring, the loves also act as roof trusses, thus being integral to the roof structure. There is evidence for the removal of the frames below the second storey in the cutting away of the vertical struts level with the wall plates. These have then been joined together by the lateral insertion of machine cut softwood beams.

The first floor of the eastern section of the building appears to have been a net store, although it has been much altered in the later 20th century and little evidence remains of its former usage. A trapdoor in the ceiling above suggests that nets were repaired in the attic above and dropped down to be stored for future use. This trap door is the only means of access via a ladder. The four opposed pairs of arch shaped braces, mounted inverted, which connect the lateral beams of the attic floor with the brick work of the northern and southern walls, are most likely reused ships' knees, the curved bracing timbers used in boat construction.

The western section of the building is the originally free-standing salt store. The ground floor is an open space devoid of features with no evidence that it was formerly divided into bays. The ground floor is ceiled by a later softwood floor to the space above, the timber beams supported by timber bracing. On the first floor the partition between the salt store and the rest of the building is the original external wall constructed of brick and cobble stone. An opening has been punched through to connect the first-floor space to the rest of the building. In the south-western corner, the position of a lintel and jamb of a timber window indicates that the current floor surface is higher than its predecessor.