Monument record 1160/0/227 - Brown & Pank Warehouse, South Bridge

Built in 1877. The former Crown Maltings built for Ratliffe & Jeffery. Later used by Lankester & Wells as a wine and spirit store and subsequently by Brown and Pank for the same purpose. Four storeys high from the river level. Appears to have been demolished in 1977.

{1} 1887. Rises direct from river, Italian Renaissance style structure of brick with stone dressings 2-2-1-2-2 bays. Round headed arches with bases just above the river level with stone archivolts and keystones. Pilasters between bays.
Centre has panelled pilasters flanking round-headed arch but stopping prematurely. 1st and 2nd floors have rusticated pilasters between bays. Segmental headed cast iron windows, the lower parts brick filled. Keystones to heads. Centre has projecting suspended tower of rectangular shape with battered sides. Decorative window surround to 1st floor; louvered opening to 2nd floor. Entablature all round tower over. At 3rd floor level the outer pilasters (on corner piers) end in Florentine capitals and the others end above 1st floor in pediments with acroteria; round arched feature over. The windows are 3-3-3-3 narrow round headed ones with keystones the centre ones all blocked. The tower has an arched feature with Florentine capitals. Above this storey is a cornice with an un-windowed attic contaning full length horizontal panels. Above the outer pilasters (or corner piers) are round arched features. Elaborate dentilled and modillioned eaves cornice going all round building and hipped slate roof. The tower continues with arched and louvred window console bracketted eaves and a square lead-covered spire with concave sides and finial. Side elevation to road has seven narrow round headed windows to 3rd floor and similar corner piers and horizontal panel board on eaves. 2nd floor has 2 segmental headed windows, one with later flush blocking and the other original blank. Partly built against; far end largely built against and featureless save for corner piers etc.

{2} 'At the South Bridge is the former Crown maltings built for Ratliffe & Jeffery in 1877, later used by Lankester & Wells as wine and spirit store and subsequently by Brown and Pank for the same purpose. Four storeys high from the river level, it is of brick, blue for the first storey and red for the remainder, with a hipped slate-covered roof. From the riverside, it is symmetrical with a thin central stone protrusion for the hoist, beginning at first floor level and terminating in a thin turret rising above the roof, surmounted by a concave sided pyramid roof. When used as maltings, the kiln seems to have been at the west end but has since been demolished.
The 1905 boiler house has been removed, together with most of its chimney although the large square base remains. The Thornewill & Warham steam engine was scrapped in 1949 and for the last years it was in use, ran on only one cylinder, the crosshead for the other having been dismantled.
Refrigeration was on the Lind system using Lightfoot horizontal ammonia compressor built c. 1907 and driven first by a drive from the steam engine, then by a separate oil engine and latterly by its own electric motor. This refrigeration system was replaced in 1961 by one using three Compressors, each of six cylinders in three banks of two, by Halls of Dartford.
The copper house, with four closed-type coppers, now heated by internal steam coils, supported in circular brickwork is as in 1905 except that the two square brick chimneys have gone since external firing is no longer practised.
The five-storied brick brewhouse has had an extension added at the north end of the east side subsequent to 1905, but still retains the slate covered mansard roof with dormer windows. The original fermenting house has a truncated pyramid roof, capped with a small glass clerestory covered by a small partly hipped (lower portion) roof. Fermenting takes part in two stages, the initial period in fairly modern fermenting rounds and then being run into rectangular vessels, of Welsh Slate, for the final fermentation. The buildings allocated to cask washing, stables etc. in 1905 have all been altered to stores, with considerable structural alterations to be able to accommodate fork lift trucks and pallets for loading.
These buildings are now largely hidden from Bridge Street by the new office block, with an inset of curtain walling built after the Phipps-NBC amalgamation in 1957.'

<1> English Heritage, 2000, Listed Buildings Online, (checked) (Database). SNN105526.

<2> Starmer G., 1970, Breweries in Northamptonshire, p. 22 (Article). SNN111859.

Record last edited

Mar 31 2026 10:22AM