Norwich Street Mills

Details

ROCHDALE

SD91SW NORWICH STREET, Lower Place
335-0/7/10021 (East side)
Norwich Street Mills

II

Cotton spinning and weaving mill, now textile company buildings. c1860. Red brick, stone details, slate roofs. PLAN: the site, built on the Rochdale Canal at its junction with a north branch, comprises 8 elements: the main mill with attached engine house; the open-sided boiler house on the south side; workshops attached to the boiler house; the chimney; the site of the weaving sheds on the south side of the main mill; a workshop and engine house standing across the mill yard on the north side of the main building; a 2-storey warehouse built on the edge of the canal to north again; remains of ornate walls and railings on the canal side.
EXTERIOR: the Italianate main spinning mill dominates the site. It is rectangular in plan, 3 and 4 storeys high, 7 x 22 bays. The narrower east facade faces the Rochdale Canal and has loading doors left, corner pilasters, flat roof. North side has entrance bay 3 with keyed round arch, stair/ water tower with hipped roof above bay 4, pilaster between bays 5 and 6. Large rectangular windows, some on the south side retain cast-iron small-pane frames, the central panes pivoted; the south side also has 5-sided projecting privy tower towards left end; added projecting full-height block far left, built in lighter red brick. The building is clearly divided laterally with the entrance and stair tower on the axis of the internal division, expressed by the buttress on the outside. On the south side: the engine house with round-arched window (blocked) and corner pilasters as mill.
The single-storey L-plan boiler house, probably for Lancashire boilers, is open-sided towards the canal, with 5 round arches, now boarded up, hipped roof. Added lean-to.
The taller 2-storey workshop block at the south end of the boiler house has small-pane windows and hipped roof. The octagonal brick chimney stands close by, the crown missing.
The site of the weaving sheds is on the south side of the main spinning mill, and survives as a road-side wall on Norwich Street.
The workshop and engine house to north of the main block is of white-painted brick, with parallel hipped slate roofs; 2 storeys and 2 bays; the engine house set back on left has a round-arched window with mullion and plate-tracery style frame, 2 more windows on left return. The workshop has rectangular windows with projecting stone sills, large
inserted loading door towards canal. The second white-painted block is 2 storeys, 9 bays with parallel hipped roofs. Tall rectangular windows on canal-side, gabled loading door on left return, ground floor entrance altered.
Subsidiary features: the stonewalling of the canal and a short length of wrought-iron railings with bars, dog bars, spear-head finials are included in the listing. A varied group of mill buildings in an important setting on the canal side. The substantial remains illustrate the quality of large mill building at a time when the cotton industry was booming.

Listing NGR: SD9022412322

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

462323

Legacy System:

LBS

End of official list entry

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