Details
SD 82 SE,
335-0/6/10017
ROCHDALE,
BRIDGEFOLD ROAD (West side)
Spotland Bridge (New) Mill
II
Cotton spinning mill, now industrial centre. c1833, early C20 extension. Built for the firm of Joseph Butterworth and Co. Ltd.
EXTERIOR: original mill of five storeys and attic, thirteen bays. Red/brown brick, slate roof, gable copings. Square fireproof external stair attached to N end, privy tower and fire escape doors (same size as windows) with cast-iron railed platforms on W side. Blocking course and corner pilasters.
INTERIOR: Two rows of cast-iron columns, with flat bolting faces for line shafting, support massive timber cross-beams and joisted timber floors; roof structure of queen-strut trusses to attic storey lit by roof lights and gable windows.
Lower engine house with paired narrow round-arched windows indicating housing for a double-beam engine at S end.
Attached to this is the low contemporary boiler house, 2-storey storeroom to rear; tapering octagonal chimney close by.
Later additions include a 2-storey office block with 4-pane sash to right of doorway and a sash window with margin lights above, added by the 1870s.
4-storey, 9 x 8 bay added mill to the east: Accrington brick, flat roof, segmental-arched 9-pane..windows. Structure of steel beams with cast iron columns and concrete floors with sprinkler tower. Powered by mains electricity.
Access from the Edenfield Road is through a gateway with wide wrought-iron gates; the original cobbled road surface survives, as does the revetment wall of massive stone slabs on the west side.
Also on the site, facing the road junction, is the mill owner/manager's house: coursed gritstone, stone surrounds to doors and windows, slate roof, no stacks. Two storeys, Two rooms deep, single-storey attached outbuilding at rear. Central recessed half-glazed door with overlight, flanking full-height canted bay windows. Doorway and tall stair window to left of centre, rear. Low retaining wall to forecourt.
HISTORY: the mill was built for spinning course counts of cotton twist. By 1888 it was powered 17,424 spindles, when the business was taken over by Chas. Whittaker Ltd.
Listed as a good example of an early C19 non-fireproof mill, which, with its early C20 addition, shows a typical expansion of the business.
(Gurr, Duncan, and Hunt: The Cotton Mills of Oldham: Oldham. 1989-) ..
development pattern for an early site. The c1833 mill is an example of the increasing width (18m) of buildings as construction methods improved and larger machines became
available during the middle yea.rs of the century. In this example the width is spanned by- timber beams for a non-fireproof construction which remained usual through the mid C19. The roof structure and roof lights indicate the Use of powered machinery rather than storage on this floor. The double beam engine had 2 cylinders side-by-side working a single flywheel; in this mill one line shaft powered each of 2 rows of spinning throstles on the wide spinning floors,
(Williams, 1992).
(Williams, M and Farnie, DA: Cotton Mills in Greater Manchester: 1992-: 74,82,83,89).
Listing NGR: SD8852613831
