In the 1850s, a malting business was established here, expanding to become one of the largest in East Anglia and supplying malt to major breweries in London and Norwich. An industrial complex in mellow red brick comprising granaries, stables, workshops, and malt houses grew up, gaining its own branch line from 1859.
Today, the railway and barges have gone, but the buildings — where malting ceased in 1965 — have taken on a new lease of life. In 1966 the Malt House was converted into a concert hall for the Aldeburgh Festival, founded by Benjamin Britten, Peter Pears, and others in 1948. The festival had grown so in importance and size that a large permanent venue had become an urgent necessity, and Snape (just a few miles inland from Aldeburgh) was ideal. The new concert hall was destroyed by fire in 1969, but was rebuilt in time for the 1970 festival.
Other buildings in the Maltings have also been converted and now include shops, galleries, and restaurants. There is also an enduring magic to the River Alde itself: at low tide a mere trickle between vast banks of mud, and at high tide a shimmering flood fringed by golden reeds.
Apart from a short stretch of road right at the beginning, the first half of the walk follows paths through first Blaxhall Common and second Tunstall Forest. The original plantation established in the 1920s on unproductive heathland consisted mostly of Corsican and Scots pine, but the Great Storm of October 1987 devastated the area, claiming 75% of all standing trees.
Tunstall Forest, covering some 2,500 acres, is now planted with a mixture of Corsican pine and native broadleaf trees such as oak, beech, and silver birch, alongside areas of open heathland to encourage one of Britain's rarer birds — the woodlark (Tunstall and neighbouring Rendlesham hold 20% of the national woodlark population).
As you walk through the forest, you will notice alongside the few mature trees some dead ones left standing as perches for birds of prey like hobbies and as nesting sites for woodpeckers, while fallen trees provide valuable habitats for insects and fungi.
Leaving Tunstall Forest behind, the route turns back towards the Alde and reaches the river at Iken Cliff. Now just a scattering of cottages with a spectacularly sighted church, Iken was once an important farming and fishing village with a jetty for loading and unloading barges (and a riverside cottage that was The Anchor Inn, one of old Iken's two pubs). Although trade from Iken Cliff stopped in the 1860s, Snape barges continue to moor in Cliff Reach.
Beyond a meadow picnic site, the path back to Snape borders the river's rustling reed beds. The estuary was embanked to claim land for agriculture, but since the 1950s widespread breaching has occurred, creating an ideal environment for wildfowl and waders.
Back at Snape Maltings, the route passes in front of the concert hall and the sculpture park, which exhibits art from famous sculptors including Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore.
