Downing's Malthouses, Gloucester Nov '12

After finding Healings Mill well and truly flooded out, me and my companion headed off in search of backups, all of which I expected to find either underwater or shut up tight, but amazingly, the one we chose wasn't!

Downings Malthouses may be more familiar to you as the 'other' mill next to the Foster Bros. site in the Gloucester Quays, mostly bricked up it made for a challenging photography experience with very little natural light to play with. It also has some of the dodgiest floors I've ever seen, I very nearly fell through two storeys of the place after stepping on a rotten area of floor hidden underneath a covering of loose grain, a certain degree of clenching was involved! The bridge over to the 1950s extension was open, but the upper floors on that side are verging on the suicidal so there was no way I was going to venture across them after my near miss.

Some history...

No.1 Malthouse: The Downing family already had malthouses around the West Midlands, and the new site at Gloucester was no doubt chosen because of ready access to imported barley. The original building had a basement with a cistern capable of steeping 100 quarters of grain, three working floors on which the grain was allowed to germinate and four kilns used to complete the production of malt. Direct railway communication was provided by a siding from the Midland Railway

No.2 Malthouse: The first malthouse was evidently successful, and a second was built to the north of the first in 1895. It had a basement working floor with a steeping tank, two more working floors and two store floors. The floor levels were the same as in the first malthouse, and the gap between the buildings was bridged at two levels. A range at the north end contained a large malt kiln heated by four fires and a smaller barley drying kiln heated by two fires.

Nos.3 & 4 Malthouses: A further expansion took place in 1901, when two more large malthouses were built with the upper floors on the west side supported on pillars over the quay (photo right). Each malthouse had a basement and four floors with a range of kilns at the north end. A bridge over linked the new malthouses to the earlier ones.

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The site closed in 1980ish, and was used for grain storage for a while. Numbers 3 and 4 are the ones explored here, number 2 contains the suicidal floors and number 1 was mostly demolished during the mid 20th century in order to build some large concrete silos.























A view of Foster Bros. from one of the windows, I previously explored it a couple of months back

















Number 2, and the suicidal floors







Cheers for looking, more here http://www.flickr.com/photos/mookie427/sets/72157632094962129/

Great stuff

nice one

..

Oh yes..... Very nice indeed

Nice one mate!

I often wondered what the inside of this one was like,now I know!great photos.

loving that mate, looks huge...great pics as well

Cheers guys, I think I actually preferred this one to Foster Bros, while both are similar this one has a few more interesting bits and bobs left behind especially on the lower levels

scared my self to death here earlier on in the year! holes holes every where! great report ben as always

It's by far the most unsafe I've ever felt in a building. I almost had to break out the spare pants.

Nice photos.

Nice work

krela said:

It's by far the most unsafe I've ever felt in a building. I almost had to break out the spare pants.

Nice photos.

Click to expand...

I actually didn't find it that bad apart from my little brick-shitting encounter, but I can see how the lack of light, low ceilings and countless holes in the floors would do that - that plus the ladder leading up to the open-air room reminded me a little bit too much of the ladder to the roof of the Hydraulic Tower in Birkenhead, except with more rungs left intact....