Snape Maltings possible site. Negotiations began with George Gooderham and after little more than a year Snape Maltings Concert Hall was ready to be opened by the Queen at the start of the 1967 Aldeburgh Festival. The composer Benjamin Britten was inspired by the vast skies and moody seas of the Suffolk coast, and in 1948, along with singer Peter Pears and writer Eric Crozier, he founded the Aldeburgh Festival. Britten and Pears made a point of educating and supporting young artists. They brought together international stars and emerging talent, including world-renowned figures such as Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Yehudi Menuhin, Sviatoslav Richter and
Snape, Suffolk of this process (by a Saxmundham bone merchant, Edward Packard) led to what has been dubbed "the Suffolk Gold Rush", and local fortunes were made (Packard established what was to become the fertiliser company Fisons, now part of AstraZeneca). Sugar beet was also an important product; it was first grown commercially in and exported to the Netherlands from Snape. The Maltings, producing and exporting high-quality malted barley, was a fourth important industry, which bequeathed buildings to the fifth significant industry: tourism. Snape had already tasted success as a tourist destination, for in the 18th and 19th centuries the Snape Race