Description

LEEDS

SE2635 ABBEY ROAD, Kirkstall 714-1/22/885 (West side) 05/08/76 No.13 and Abbey Mills (Formerly Listed as: ABBEY ROAD, Kirkstall (South side) Abbey Mills including No.13 Abbey Road)

GV II

Mill complex, corn/oil and wool, now light industrial units. Early C19, incorporating remains of earlier mill buildings destroyed by fire 1799; later C19 and C20 alterations. Coursed squared gritstone, grey slate and stone slate roofs. The complex has 4 linked ranges in rough L-plan, one side parallel to Abbey Road; the masonry platform and bridge over the goit, and the remains of a further range parallel to the goit, to the south. Main range has an early entrance block on the road side, 2 storeys and 3 bays with blocked round arch right, quoined jambs, plain sills and lintels, 2 blocked doorways; on the left return is No.13 Abbey Road: inserted doorway with overlight and large windows, C20 frames, hipped roof, a roadside wall with flat coping and plain stone gate piers with shaped tops. To right of the former entrance is the gable end of a 4-storey block with blocked ground-floor entrance, small rectangular windows and 2 inserted C20 windows. The gabled range extends westwards approx 10 bays, part obscured by corrugated iron lean-to: the small windows with large sills and lintels of the original arrangement are altered towards the western end by larger inserted openings, the original top-floor openings are set well below the building's eaves line. The rear (N) side of this range has enlarged 2nd-floor windows and an attached lower range built with some very large stones and, on the E wall 1st floor, a blocked voussoired flat arch and square windows with stone surrounds, gable to right. On the masonry platform at the W end of the site and standing

at right angles to the 4-storey block there is a 4-storey, 11-bay range built with burned stones, possibly from the 1799 fire. It has a part-blocked round archway centre, W side, 2 tiers of tall 6-pane windows and 5 small windows under the eaves, right. Two 1st-floor windows are blocked, one of the stones having shallow well-cut date '1814'. The S gable is 4 windows, circular panel in gable, gable coping and short stack. The N end is altered but in the gable a tall loading door with flanking square windows; to N again a 3-bay single-storey shed with north lights. The 2-storey, 6-window range parallel to the present yard access, possibly a finishing shop, has herring-bone tooling and tie-stone jambs to the paired doors, right, square windows in plain stone surrounds, original form right, 2 knocked into 1 and lintels raised centre and left, an ashlar ridge stack, raised in brick, to right of centre. 2 further 2-storey bays with altered openings, right. Across the yard, and parallel to the mill's tailrace, the single-storey range was possibly the drying house; N end demolished, stone and brick ranges probably the remains of machine shops, stables, etc. The remaining features of the site are the masonry platform and the tail-race bridge, the latter approx 30m long, 3 buttresses, 2 wide segmental arches with rusticated voussoirs, rounded coping to the low ashlar parapet wall. INTERIOR: not inspected. HISTORICAL NOTE: the mill is thought to stand on the site of a medieval complex processing corn. A major fire in 1799 resulted in extensive rebuilding and by the 1820s Ephraim Elsworth worked a corn and oil mill here; parts were used for the production of woollen cloth from the 1820s until 1961 when it was bought by Leeds City Council. The 10-bay range with small windows is perhaps part of the corn mill, while the tall western range, former drying house and finishing shops relate to woollen manufacture.



Listing NGR: SE2627735718

External Links

• Wikidata Q26548164

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