Malthouse Lane is in the centre of Salisbury, just off from Fisherton Street it’s the road that run up beside the old C&A building to the City Hall and the Playhouse.
The snap below shows Malthouse Lane leading out onto Fisherton Street. In the foreground is the Old C & A building, now occupied by Snips, Mortimer’s and Venus and Mars. Behind that you can see the spires of the United Reform Church and the Cathedral. To the right is one end of the old Infirmary building, now called, I think, Pembroke House.
A malthouse is a building used for making malt, obviously enough.
Malt is a way of processing grain typically for use in beer or whiskey. The grain is soaked in water so that it starts to sprout, then it is quickly dried to stop the germination process. This softens it and turns the starch in the grain into sugar. ([1])
There were malthouses in the area to the north of Fisherton Street for many years. The Victoria County History says that:
In 1649 a brewery, malt house and kiln of eighteen bays, with malting rooms above, stood on the north side of Fisherton Street…..By 1879 six malthouses stood on the north side of Fisherton Street between the ‘Angel’ and the river. (fn. 254) From 1867 they belonged to Messrs. Charles and Alfred Williams.([2])
Visiting Salisbury Playhouse or the City Hall
For accommodation, see the Hotels in Salisbury page.
Footnotes
- Malt – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia [↩]
- ‘Fisherton Anger’, A History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume 6 (1962), pp. 180-194. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=41809 Date accessed: 27 February 2010. [↩]