Former Malt House To Rear Of No. 59

Former Malt House to Rear of No. 59, Henley on Thames

This former malt house, probably dating from the 17th or early 18th century, stands to the rear of a burgage plot on Market Place. It was adapted for use in the malting or hop-drying process and continued in industrial use on this site until 1877, when it was converted to a garden outbuilding following the Baptist Church's acquisition of the property.

The building is constructed with an upper frame of timber dating from the upper 17th or early 18th century, featuring slightly curved wall braces with some reused timber, particularly on the east and north walls. The timber frame is infilled with brick nogging, and the lower portion is underbuilt to first floor level in flint with brick piers. The north gable wall is weather-boarded, and the roof is covered in plain tiles pitched over a simple structure.

The plan comprises two bays. The southern bay contains an inserted floor, while the northern bay houses a conical timber kiln roof contained beneath the pitched roof. Later 19th-century entrances have been cut into the west and east elevations at lower level. The west elevation was formerly built against the plot boundary wall.

The timber-framed and brick-nogged upper walls retain evidence of their industrial past. Late 19th and 20th-century window openings have been inserted on the south and west elevations, fitted with 20th-century windows. The east and north elevations have no window openings. A late 19th-century boarded door with strap hinges cuts into the timber frame on the east elevation, with a further doorway inserted into the west wall.

Internally, the building displays a clasped purlin wind-braced roof with a pair of vertical curved braces rising from the collar of the central truss. The northern bay contains a lightly constructed conical timber roof presumed to be a small kiln. The southern bay's inserted floor comprises reused timber with transverse beam and joists reset upside down, featuring stave slots on the beam's underside and chamfers on the upper side of the beam and joists. The joists rest on stone pads set into the flint wall. A timber gallery extends into the northern bay, constructed after the building's industrial use ceased. Evidence of former studs between the horizontal timbers of the central truss indicates a partition once divided the space.

Henley has a well-documented history of malting and hop-drying conducted at a scale comparable to that described by Gervase Markham, the early 17th-century author, with maltings typically laid out at the rear of burgage plots. Similar surviving examples remain at the rear of 18 Hart Street. An 1877 conveyancing plan shows the layout of buildings at the rear of nos. 55, 57, and 59 Market Place. According to Dr Plot, quoted in John S Burn's 1861 History of Henley, kilns were sometimes fuelled by the same fire that served the kitchen.

Documents for nos. 55, 57, and 59 Market Place reference a malt house as early as 1690. A hop kiln is mentioned in 1737, with later documents recording hop fields in the same ownership or tenancy. The 1877 conveyance, made when the Baptist Church acquired the plot, records that the malt house belonged to Miss Townsend, owner of No. 59. The following year, all but this building in the range forming the maltings were demolished, and the land to the north was levelled, leaving the northern end of the surviving building below current ground level. The 1878 Ordnance Survey map shows a greenhouse or conservatory attached to the southern end, indicating the building was no longer in kiln use by that date. In recent times it has served as an artist's studio.