Benjamin Britten village of Snape, six miles inland, became available for hire, Britten realised that the largest of them could be converted into a concert hall and opera house. The 830-seat Snape Maltings hall was opened by the Queen at the start of the twentieth Aldeburgh Festival on 2 June 1967; it was immediately hailed as one of the best concert halls in the country. The hall was destroyed by fire in 1969, but Britten was determined that it would be rebuilt in time for the following year's festival, which it was. The Queen again attended the opening performance in 1970. The
Martin Snape seal for the newly created Borough of Gosport (though the council logo is now a stylised modern version, the original design is still used by the Gosport Borough Football Club). In 1923 he was chosen to give the speech of welcome to the 91st Annual conference of the British Medical Association which was being held in Portsmouth. He died in 1930 but his most famous painting, "Forton Creek", one of a series, still hangs in the town hall. Snape is buried in the churchyard at St Mary's, the parish church of Rowner. He had a great fondness for the village