A 1762 barley maltings as Top Hotel and Casino Resort
The casino hotel at Blyth Maltings House occupies the old Smithson maltings — a long brick-and-flint barley malting house on the south bank of the Blyth estuary, built in 1762 by the Halesworth brewer William Smithson on a tenanted site that the Suffolk Maltings Survey of 1738 already lists as a working maltings. The casino resort, which is to say the present property and its four-acre reed-bed and salt-marsh frontage, came into the family in 1948 when our great-grandfather Edward Easton bought it as a derelict store from the Suffolk County Council. We took the casino hotel into the present generation in 2018 and reopened the eight rooms in March 2023, after a four-winter restoration under the conservation architect Helena Garrett of Bury St Edmunds — Helena being also a cousin of the house and the reason the work was unhurried. The casino resort sits below the line of the old Halesworth–Southwold Railway, half a mile west of the Walberswick foot-ferry, with the marsh between us and the sea.
Eight rooms across the casino hotel and the kiln-room range
Of the eight rooms in the casino hotel, five face north over the estuary through the original square-headed windows of the maltings range; three face south over the kitchen garden and the long brick wall that separated the maltings yard from the river path. The beds are made at the Marshall workshop in Long Melford, the wool blankets are from the Sudbury silk mill, and the bath linen is washed in the soft water that the housekeeper, Mrs Edith Crowe, says guests start commenting on by the second day. The casino resort holds itself unhurried: the rooms are large, the walls thick, the reed thatch a foot deep above the upper rooms.
The Maltings Range, ground floor
Three rooms in the original 1762 maltings, with brick floors, lime-washed walls, and the original arched malting-house windows onto the estuary. The middle room keeps the iron grain shoot in the corner, decommissioned but in place.
The Maltings Range, upper floor
Two rooms under the reed thatch, with the original oak crucks exposed and dormer windows facing the marsh. The west room has a small Suffolk-iron fireplace restored by the foundry at Beccles.
The Kiln-Room Range
Three rooms in the converted kiln-house, plainer than the maltings, with the original perforated drying floor preserved in the entrance corridor and modern oak floors above. Quieter than the main range, popular with people who come to read.
Dining hall, kiln-room library, taproom
Breakfast and supper in the estuary-facing dining hall under the original reed thatch. The upper kiln-room library is open to guests at any hour. The stone-flagged taproom is open to townspeople and guests alike from six in the evening.
A small fixture in the kiln-room library, run by appointment
The upper kiln-room library — the long room above the old drying floor, where the maltster's records from 1762 to 1948 are kept in the original deal cupboards along the south wall — is also where the house runs a small card fixture under a Gambling Commission casino licence. It is a room of the house: brick walls, the perforated iron drying-floor visible through a small glass panel in the centre, a low coffered ceiling, the reading lamps replaced in 2022, and the original maltster's desk kept by the window where the third William Smithson sat to balance the books in November 1841.
The fixture is open by appointment with reception, to registered house guests over the age of eighteen, and is closed on Sundays and during the property's annual maintenance closure in the first two weeks of January. We do not advertise it, we do not describe it further on this site, and our staff cannot answer questions about it by telephone. Anyone wishing to know more should write to reception and call in person.
Walberswick, the Blyth, and the marsh
Walberswick is a small Suffolk village on the south bank of the Blyth estuary, opposite the larger town of Southwold across the foot-ferry. Population around four hundred and forty, an old fishing-and-mending economy now turning quietly toward the marsh walkers and the painters, with a single shop, the Bell, and the Anchor at the top of the green. The casino resort sits at the western end of the village, beyond the boatyard, on the small lane that runs down to the old Halesworth–Southwold Railway bed and the marsh path.
Most guests arrive by train to Halesworth on the East Suffolk Line, where Robert collects them in the long-wheelbase Defender. A few drive in by the A12 from Saxmundham. The casino hotel is a comfortable forty minutes from Aldeburgh and an hour from Cambridge; we would advise an unhurried arrival in either case, as the lanes are narrow and the marsh visible only at low tide.
Responsible Gaming
The kiln-room library card fixture at Blyth Maltings House is operated under a Gambling Commission casino licence as a small in-person event for registered house guests over the age of eighteen. It is not advertised, no online or remote play is offered, and this website does not facilitate gambling of any kind. If gambling has become a difficulty for you or for someone in your household, GamCare, BeGambleAware, the National Problem Gambling Clinic, GAMSTOP, and Gamblers Anonymous offer free and confidential support throughout the United Kingdom. We have no relationship with any of these organisations and provide no links from this site; their contact details are easily found by name.