Description

SD 8563 CONGLETON MOUNTBATTEN WAY
(North-west side)
702/2/10024 Brook Mill and attached
railings and yard wall

II

Includes: Brook Mill and attached railings and yard wall, BROOKSIDE ROAD
Includes: Brook Mill and attached railings and yard wall, STONEHOUSE GREEN
Silk throwing and weaving mills, water- and later steam-powered; silk spinning mills from 1835, now factory. 1785-early C19, extended 1835. Brick with stone foundation courses, and slate roofs. PLAN: irregular layout of the two original4-storey mills following the water course, and the 1835 five-storey weaving mill at an angle at the E end, with ancillary buildings in the yard to the S.
EXTERIOR: 4-storeys; 4:9:9-window range, with 1835 5-storey; 8-window E range. Earlier mills lower and narrower with stone lintels; narrower Wend section of 4 windows with a 1- 'window stair tower at the end; wider mill to the W has a lavatory tower in the angle on the S side; the two earlier mills canted at a slight angle to one another. 1835 mill has dated rainwater hoppers, a parapet and coped gables, and rubbed brick flat arches; the 4-window W gable has a left-hand half-round dry shute privy tower with small openings to each floor and an open ashlar base for removal of the soil; formerly with a round stair tower attached to the E gable adjoining the earlier mill, now demolished.
INTERIOR: earlier mills have timber cross beams and king and queen post roofs, the 1835 mill has 2 rows of cast-iron columns to box beam floors.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: attached iron spear-headed railings to the wall bordering the stream on the N side; former yard wall with ashlar base extends from the Wend along the stream and returns to the S.
HISTORY: originally built for throwing and weaving silk, by 1821 both water and steam were used as complementary power systems, both by day and only water by night. The 1835 mill was for powered weaving; the privy shute is a particularly good example of the improvements in mill worker amenities. The whole site was converted for silk spinning in 1835. The various processes of silk dressing and spinning were carried out on the ground floors, with weaving on those above. This is the largest surviving complex of silk mills in Congleton, and the only remaining example in the region of a works used for silk spinning. This is a site of considerable historical interest at the centre of the local textile industry, illustrating the modest water power sites which silk mills could exploit, and the increase in scale of late C18 to mid C19 mills. Bibliography: (Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England), East Cheshire Textile Mills (Anthony Calladine and Jean Fricker et al), 1993, Page(s) 83,86.

Listing NGR: SJ8586163168

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q60887026

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
• 
  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Essex: Buildings of England Series (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990
• 
  Kent: West and the Weald: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)