Humphrey died in April 1816 leaving legacies totalling £1640 to nephews and nieces. His nephew George took over the buildings on the wharf and sold the contents which from the auctioneers advert in the Derby Mercury we know included  brewing vessels. A map of the same year confirms that the corbelled building started life as a brewery. In the will George is described as a maltster and as the brewing implements were sold perhaps the building now continues as a maltings or malt warehouse.  

Humphrey is not gone, however, as George Gilbert tells us the story of Humphrey’s ghost haunting the building, a tale dating from George's childhood in the 1820s which caused him to "whistle as loudly as ever I could whenever I had to pass it". George also tells us that until the Baptist Chapel was built on the Wharf the house attached was used to hold services and the Sunday School classes.  

By 1852 the properties are owned by William Clarke  who is running the Malthouse himself, letting out the house which later becomes the Malt Shovel to William Bancroft, a boatbuilder and a storeroom to Mary Cope who runs the New Inn.    

Throughout the latter part of the 19th and early 20th centuries the building was a brewhouse and never listed as a public house or inn in the local trade directories. For some years it was called the Dew Drop and the first mention of it as the Malt Shovel seems to be the 1891 census when the publican is Joseph Cope.  We know from a Trust Deed of 1923 that the "Malt house or Malt Office now unoccupied" and the beerhouse, the Malt Shovel Inn were owned by Zachary Smith and Co., whose brewery was across the canal. Zachary lived at Broughton House. Smiths Brewery was taken over by Marston's and so to the present day.  

More information, photographs, maps and the full text of the 1816 advert, George Gilbert’s memories of the beerhouse and Humphrey’s ghost and a fuller story of Zachary Smith’s Brewery are on display at the Centre. Use the links below for more information.