Snape Maltings of the Britten-Pears Library. Snape Maltings Snape Maltings is an arts complex on the banks of the River Alde at Snape, Suffolk, England. It is best known for its concert hall, which is one of the main sites of the annual Aldeburgh Festival. The original purpose of the Maltings was the malting of barley for the brewing of beer; local barley, once malted, was sent from here to London and exported to mainland Europe. Today a collection of shops, galleries, restaurants and the Concert Hall fill the old buildings. The Alde Estuary is known for wildlife and river trips. Newson
Aldeburgh Festival Peter and Saint Paul. It featured a performance of "Albert Herring" by the English Opera Group; Britten's newly written Saint Nicolas; and performances by Clifford Curzon and the Zorian String Quartet. Over the years the festival grew and took in additional venues in nearby Orford, Blythburgh and Framlingham. However, the lack of a large venue was holding back the further development of the Festival until one of the largest mid-nineteenth-century maltings in East Anglia, at Snape, a village just outside Aldeburgh, became available. Britten, who had lived in Snape in the 1930s, had the vision that the largest of the