Swan Meadow works western mill number 3, Eckersley Mills, Douglas, Wigan

Summary

A cotton spinning mill (part of an integrated complex) with attached boiler and dynamo house, chimney and engine house, of 1900 by AH Stott and Sons in an Italianate style of red brick with buff sandstone dressings, for ffarington Eckersley and Co, with later alterations.

Description

A cotton spinning mill (part of an integrated complex), comprising a spinning block with attached boiler and dynamo house, chimney and engine house, of 1900 by AH Stott and Sons, for ffarington Eckersley and Co, with later alterations.

MATERIALS: common brick to spinning block and red brick to engine house and chimney, with buff sandstone dressings, slate roofs and timber windows, cast-iron columns, steel beams, concrete floors.

PLAN: comprising spinning block aligned east-west with attached engine house, boiler house and chimney to the rear, entrance and water tower to the front and latrine turret to the east.

EXTERIOR: forming the south-eastern component of an important group of cotton mills and associated structures on this site, which are collectively a very striking feature comprising a substantial part of the Wigan Pier Conservation Area.

The mill is of four-storeys and of 33 x 11 bays in an Italianate style, of brick in English Garden Wall bond with panelled corner pilasters, ground-floor and third-floor sill bands, and coped parapet.

The front faces north and is arranged asymmetrically with long spinning rooms to the left, an entrance and water tower (with an attached later service turret that is excluded from the listing) and short preparation rooms to the right (24:1:8 windows respectively). The square tower rises two stages above a dentilled cornice at the mill parapet, and has panelled pilasters, moulded string courses, balustraded parapet and lead-clad pyramidal roof. The first stage has stone bands with a small three-light mullioned window between them, and the second stage has larger five-light window with swept stone pediment dated 1900, all to both the front and side returns. The lower levels of the tower are obscured to the front and east by the service turret which is raised on ground-floor steelwork. Below this the front entrance has a pedimented doorway. The west face of the tower has sill and lintel bands to each floor. The main ranges to left and right are very regularly fenestrated, with large windows on all floors, with six-pane joinery and segmental heads (with keystones to the third floor). The ground floor has (from the left) inserted doorways in bays 4 and 5, 12, and 16 and 17, and a blind bay 29 (with a blocked basement opening and first-floor loading door retaining an iron architrave, truncated teagle and timber doors). The north-west corner has coupled pilasters to the front and west return.

The west wall has similar detailing and a central turret where the beaming block was formerly attached; now with exposed doorways from that block. Many of the ground and southern windows are blocked. To the right the chimney is attached by a curved wall and has a prominent blue-engineering-brick plinth, square base with moulded stone cap, and tapering octagonal brick shaft rising to around 25m. Attached at the right is a three-bay side wall of the boiler house, with stone sill band; this section currently (2022) roofless and windowless.

The south wall is obscured for seven bays at the left by the single-storey boiler house, which is gabled with a roof lantern (glazing missing). To the right the engine house stands opposite the entrance tower, almost to the height of the main range. It has stone bands and string courses, and a full-height Venetian-style round-headed window opening with pilastered surround and moulded stone head with large keystone, and pediment incorporated in the parapet above. To the left a small return abuts the boiler house, and to the right is a two-storey extension with similar detailing, its opening blocked. The main range to the right has similar detailing to the front, and is partly obscured by a late-C20 loading dock and corrugated lift shafts that are excluded from the listing.

The east end has similar detailing to the front and rear, and a central turret of three bays with stacked lancet windows, single to the outside and paired in the centre; the turret has two-window side returns.

INTERIOR: cast-iron columns support steel beams which form the soffit of concrete beams above, which are spanned by concrete slabs (some of which are divided by timber joists to a timber final floor finish). Some columns and the soffits of some beams retain seatings for fixing power-transmission equipment. Several power transfer boxes survive within the walls, and at least two bearings survive with in-situ line shafting attached. There is some survival of fire suppression pipework. Original timber doors to the engine house also survive. The spectacular full-height space of the engine house is tiled from floor to ceiling (much of which survives) in bands of white and green, with chequered and patterned tiles, moulded cornice and dark brown dado to the ground floor, and moulded stone lintel-cornice and imposts to the windows and a further dentilled cornice above this. The north wall has a tall arched drive opening flanked by shorter arches, with pilasters and moulded stone arches. The brick engine beds also survive.

History

Swan Meadow western mill number 3 was built in 1900 as part of a westward expansion of the existing works of James Eckersley and Sons (established in 1823). In 1883 the firm established a separate company called ffarington Eckersley and Co Ltd (which merged with James Eckersley in 1900 to form Eckersleys Cotton Trust, known from 1918 as Eckersleys Ltd). The new enterprise built some of the earliest mills specifically for ring spinning, and additional weaving capacity, to the west of the existing mills. Prolific mill designers Stott and Sons were commissioned, and applied modern fireproof construction techniques (the site had suffered a disastrous fire to Old Mill in 1880, which was also rebuilt by Stotts).

Western mill number 3 included an attached engine house (designed for a vertical steam engine), boiler-and-dynamo-house and chimney to the south, and a north-light multi-storey beaming block to the west. It used a steel-and-concrete construction that Stotts had adopted in 1891. Number 1 mill (National Heritage List for England – NHLE - entry 1384527) had been built in 1884 and number 2 mill (NHLE 1384528) in 1888, the three mills illustrating evolutions in mill construction technology.

An 1886 extension to an 1840s weaving shed also occupied the space between western mills 1 and 2. This was the only weaving mill serving all three western spinning blocks (as well as the site’s older mills) until a further weaving shed was added to the west of number 1 mill in 1905. In 1906 this was extended to the north with a two-storey ‘new’ reeling and winding block. The complex was further expanded with an office block (1904, extended with a north-light winding room in 1912 – NHLE 1384531), and unusually, a purpose-built on-site workers’ welfare building (around 1918, NHLE 1384530) with dining rooms and entertainment hall.

The original 1840s weaving shed, Jenny Mill (1823), Old Mill and Large Mill (1842) were largely demolished in the 1960s as part of a rationalisation programme. A late-C20 industrial estate partly replaced, but incorporates some elements of, the 1886 weaving shed extension. The engine house of mill 3 was extended in 1922 to accommodate a uniflow steam engine for supplementary power. A service turret was added to the north in the 1950s and the chimney was reduced in height in the late-C20. The mill was listed in 1994. The beaming block was demolished in 2021.

Eckersleys’ colossal works were, at the height of production in the 1920s, one of the largest integrated textile manufactories in the country, operating more than 250,000 spindles and 1,650 looms in 6 spinning and 2 weaving mills on a site of approximately 51,000 sqm, and employing over 3,000 people. The company were the largest ring-spinners in the country from 1888 to 1918, and operated here until 1968. Atypically, as well as the mills, from the late-C19 the site accommodated allotment gardens, and (after the First World War) bowling greens and other sports grounds, as well as the welfare building. James and Nathaniel Eckersley also built several streets of houses (now demolished) and the Church of SS James and Thomas (NHLE 1384468) in nearby Poolstock for their workers.

In framed ring spinning, the drawing and twisting of a roving, and winding the resultant yarn onto a spindle, are a continuous process. This is more efficient than spinning mules, which draw and twist with one stroke, and wind on a return stroke. Although largely rejected in Lancashire after its invention in the USA in 1929, it was reintroduced to the English industry in the 1870s by textile-machine maker Samuel Brooks of Gorton (Manchester). Over the next 30 years or so it largely replaced the similar throstle-frames which had developed here (and had been used, for example, at Wigan’s Gidlow works of 1868, NHLE 1384455).

Wigan’s early adoption of ring spinning reflects the availability of women in its workforce. With mule spinning largely done by men the C19 textile industry consistently employed around 60 per cent women overall, and in cotton weaving. However, in the decades before 1914, ring spinning was almost an exclusively female occupation. Also, fewer men were employed in weaving where other ‘men’s work’ was available – such as Wigan’s coal mining. Eckersleys’ workforce was remarkably female-dominated, with women making up around 95% of the total.

AH Stott and Sons of Oldham was a practice of engineering architects responsible for designing around 20% of all new cotton spinning mills in Lancashire between 1880 and 1914. The founder Abraham Henthorn Stott (1822 to 1904) was joined in partnership by sons Jesse (1853 to 1917) in 1875 and Abraham Henthorn Stott junior (1856 to 1931) in 1877. The two Abrahams in particular were responsible for a number of innovations in construction, notably employing various configurations of metal beams and brick arches for fire resistance. Their brother Philip Sidney Stott (1858 to 1937) was a partner from 1881 to 1884 (when Abraham senior also retired), and then set up a rival practice. The partners also became directors and shareholders in several mill-building companies (known as ‘the limiteds’) which in the later-C19 and early-C20 were the principal builders of new mills.

Reasons for Listing

Swan Meadow works western mill number 3, a cotton spinning mill (part of an integrated complex) with attached boiler and dynamo house, chimney and engine house, of 1900 by AH Stott and Sons, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* it is an impressive example of cotton mill architecture, designed by prolific and innovative architect AH Stott junior, with notable Italianate detailing in particular enhancing the tall entrance tower and corner turrets, and the engine-house;

* its retained spaces housed all of its original processes, and together with other elements of the integrated mill complex (in particular the 1886 weaving shed extension and blocks for winding and reeling) its process flow remains legible;

* together with mills 1 and 2 on this site it contributes to displaying important stages in the improvements to mill construction techniques during the late C19 ranging from iron framing with brick arches to steel framing with concrete floors.

Historic interest:

* Eckersleys’ workforce was remarkably female-dominated, with ring-spinning being an almost exclusively female occupation, and led to the site’s early adoption of this improved technology;

* together with the other surviving historic buildings on the site it expresses the firm’s substantial late-C19 and early-C20 investment and expansion that created one of the largest integrated textile production sites in the country.

Group value:

* it is a key component of Eckersleys’ Swan Meadow works and has strong visual, functional and contextual group value with mills 1 and 2, the workers’ welfare building and the gatehouse, office and winding block.

External Links

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