Plans to keep servery at Suffolk home of Benjamin Britten

Harry Young, representing Britten Pears Arts, has applied to East Suffolk Council to keep the servery shed to allow the serving of refreshments outdoors at the Red House in Golf Lane, Aldeburgh.

The facility was originally built during the COVID-19 pandemic to provide outdoors catering to visitors to the Red House museum and gardens and the latest application seeks to make the shed permanent.

READ MORE: Britten’s legacy assured as organisation behind Aldeburgh Festival merges

At the time when the initial plans for the shed were submitted during the pandemic, the applicant said: "The shed is required to provide an outdoors catering offering to the visitors of the Red House Museum and Gardens in accordance with ongoing Coronavirus guidance to businesses."

The Red House is home to the charity Britten Pears Arts and serves as an archive and study centre for the musical legacy of the two men.

In addition to exhibitions and tours of the house, where it is possible to view part of Pears’ extensive art collection, there is also a state-of-the-art archive building, set in five acres of grounds, which houses all of Benjamin Britten’s papers and has been declared the most extensive composer collection in the world.

READ MORE: Aldeburgh news

Composer Benjamin Britten on the driveway at the Red House (Image: Archant)The shed is situated next to a summer house in the garden and some distance away from the main house, with the aim being to give the appearance of a garden feature.

Lowestoft-born Britten, who died in 1976 aged 63, was considered a central figure of 20th century British music and composed the opera Peter Grimes and the orchestral showpiece The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra.

The plans for the servery shed were backed by Aldeburgh Town Council's planning committee at a meeting on Monday.

READ MORE: Suffolk news