New uses for old buildings

Snape Maltings is perhaps one of the best examples of how a once thriving Victorian maltings now has a striking, very contemporary life as a world class concert hall. Snape is close to Blaxhall, where George Ewart Evans wrote the Ask the Fellows who Cut the Hay and features and also features in my book, Where are the Fellow who Cut the Hay?

The maltings was built in the 1840s by Newson Garrett, whose grandfather Richard Garrett had started making steam engines in nearby Leiston. It struck me while filming this video (below), that Snape Maltings is a similar age to Leiston’s Quaker Meeting House, a building that could benefit from greater use than it currently enjoys.

Snape Maltings today has more visitors, and more people working there than ever it had before. I wonder how we can put Leiston’s Quaker Meeting House back in the centre of things?