Tuckers Maltings

Tuckers Maltings is a late 19th-century malting complex, constructed in 1900 by the architect and engineer William Bradford, with a later extension to one side. The building is constructed of Devon limestone rubble, with red brick stepped eaves bands and rusticated dressings. It has a slate damp-proof course and crested slate roofs of varying heights, including two sections with hipped roofs to the malt kilns and three gabled timber elevator towers along the ridge.

The main building consists of two long rectangular ranges, including a three-window block to the left and a single-storey, curved range to the far left with blocked windows, a 20th-century garage door, and a corrugated-iron roof. The left-hand block is three storeys high and has rubblestone quoins and jambs; a blocked ground-floor window features a rubblestone arch, while other windows and a full-height gabled loading bay have brick arches with keystones. The central block has segmental arches without keystones, with windows of four square panes over two, most now plate glass, all with stop-chamfered arrises to the frames. The block to the inside left has six windows; the two malt kiln blocks each have three windows. The later block to the right features keystones to the segmental arches, lacks an eaves band, has four altered gabled loading bays and windows. The gabled left return includes a semicircular arched recess with a bracket and pulley and 20th-century windows.

The working maltings, now also a museum and visitor centre, are remarkably well-preserved internally. Features include original planked floors, 1900 concrete drying floors, cast-iron columns, steeping tanks, a Jacob’s ladder bucket elevator, barley screener, malt cleaner, and four kilns originally heated by coal delivered directly from the railway at the rear. Original gaslight fittings and some stairs remain, while other stairs are 20th-century reconstructions. The later block to the right was formerly used for cider production. This represents a remarkably complete surviving example of an industrial malting.