Details
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
