Report - Bairds Malt – Grantham – June 2021

[mockney reject]

The History

At the beginning of 2021 Australian based United Malt Group announced that they would be closing the Maltings based in Grantham.

Built in 1964, it is the last operating maltings in Grantham, a town once known for its maltings.

Grantham was the home to numerous maltings in its heyday. Up to 20 maltings businesses operated in the town at one time including Lee and Grindlings and Pidcocks.

The Grantham site produced around 30,000 tonnes of malt, mostly for traditional UK brewers.

Much of this was delivered in bulk by road but some 4,000 tonnes was also supplied in 25kg bags.

The site operated a ‘Wanderhaufen’ style of malting plant, consisting of separate steeping, germination and kilning vessels and was fully PLC controlled throughout.

The Grain tower itself is the highest building in the town and had been used for charity abseiling events, but it will soon make way for housing.

The Explore

I spend a fair bit if time travelling up and down the A1 past Grantham and often wondered what the tall tower was I could see looming over the town.

Well on one of these many trips the petrol station I normally used was out of diesel so I headed into Grantham and found the local Asda. I topped up, grabbed some snacks and headed back onto the A1. However the satnav took me in the direction of this tower I had seen and as I drove by the large concrete blocks, closed signs and security camera towers caught my beady eyes.

On the way back down the A1 a few weeks later I had time to kill so stopped off for a KFC and a wander. The site appeared to be fairly well secure with cameras on every possibly entrance point. The question was, were they being watched…..

I’d mentioned the site to a few others including @xplorer.x and when a free weekend popped up we headed to Grantham to see what was what.

The site seemed pretty secure as we did a few laps but it was already drawing us in.

We eventually found an entry point and after teasing a camera for a bit to see if anyone would come we made our way into the site.

We found ourselves in the Kiln building first, with very little to see, the kilns themselves were inaccessible probably dude to the fire there a few years back.

Neat control panel huh?

We then made our way through the washing room, this was kinda like a big stainless steel BMX halfpipe, I did kick myself for not having my bike in the car lol

 

[mockney reject]

Next we headed up the smaller of the two towers where we found various conveyors, hoppers, drains and a whole host of Carier machinery. This made me smile as I worked for Carier’s for many years and sadly they went tits up in 2005. So seeing so stuff I had possibly designed was pretty ace. Carier products are still made today by a company called Guttridge but not in anywhere near as volume as they were years ago. https://www.guttridge.com/eu/en/carier-range

We headed up the stairs and decided to do the smaller building from the top to the bottom.

We then headed through a few basement tunnel areas, via an interesting control panel or two.

 

[mockney reject]

We finally made our way into the bottom of the main grain tower. Again we started at the top and worked our way down.

The top floor was home to some small machinery, mainly a collector that appeared to feed the tower.

The next floor, floor 6, was home to the bin tops, this area had some lovely symmetry and had inspection hatches to check all was well in the bins on the lower floor.

Floors 3, 4&5 were just inspection floors. These consisted of mesh flooring and vertical conveyors, nothing that exciting.

Floor 2 was pretty interesting with weighing equipment and an area where samples could be taken

Floor 1 was the home of the control panels, some more conveyors and tubing. It did however have an oddly placed machine for sewing the grain bags up, almost as if it was on display.

All in all it was a great way to spend an afternoon and quite impressive to see.

I dare say the site has more to offer but we had to avoid security who are based in the main building, next to the smaller tower.​

 

[xplorer.x]

Great coverage there, was a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon!

Also found it surprising to see some areas decommissioned long before the full closure of the site, something I definitely wasn't expecting, giving the reasonably well maintained external appearance.

 

[mockney reject]

Great coverage there, was a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon!

Also found it surprising to see some areas decommissioned long before the full closure of the site, something I definitely wasn't expecting, giving the reasonably well maintained external appearance.

I did find a few references to a couple of fires that had happened there so I wonder if this contributed to the early closure of some bits

 

[host]

great report you can almost smell it.

 

[HughieD]

This is mega. Had it on my radar for a while so big up to you cracking it.

 

[tweek]

proper bo I tell thee

 

[jST]

Nice one mockneeey

 

[dave]

A great effort it certainly pays to check these places out even if they sometimes seem very difficult at first glance.

 

[Bikin Glynn]

Nicely done, u cracked it!

 

[Bikin Glynn]

That does look pretty cool, I should of made more of an effort lol
Hopefully get to see it one day

 

[KPUrban_]

Some brilliant images, the structure of these places is always interesting.

 

[xplorer.x]

I did find a few references to a couple of fires that had happened there so I wonder if this contributed to the early closure of some bits

I suppose that would make sence. The derelict bits did seem to be more outdated, so theres another potential explanation for the early decommissioning of some areas.

 

[Calamity Jane]

Nicely scouted. Great coverage there. Nice to see the shoots too. Lots of natural light too. Like this :