THE SILK MILL

THE SILK MILL, BROOK STREET

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1338863
Date first listed:: 29-May-1986
List Entry Name:: THE SILK MILL
Statutory Address:: THE SILK MILL, BROOK STREET

The Missing Pieces Project

Share your view of unique places.

Add your contribution

Location

Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.

There is a problem

Use of this mapping is subject to terms and conditions.

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.

What is the National Heritage List for England?

The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.

The list includes:

🏠 Buildings
🏰 Scheduled monuments
🌳 Parks and gardens
⚔️ Battlefields
⚓ Shipwrecks

Find out more about listing

Images of England Project

To view this image please use Firefox, Chrome, Safari, or Edge.

Archive image, may not represent current condition of site.

Date:: 2005-03-23
Reference:: IOE01/14063/06
Rights:: © Mr A. Gude. Source: Historic England Archive

Historic England Archive

Search over 1 million photographs and drawings from the 1850s to the present day using our images archive.

Find Photos

Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1338863
Date first listed:: 29-May-1986
List Entry Name:: THE SILK MILL
Statutory Address 1:: THE SILK MILL, BROOK STREET

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: THE SILK MILL, BROOK STREET

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Hertfordshire
District:: Dacorum (District Authority)
Parish:: Tring
National Grid Reference:: SP 92533 11884

Details

SP 9211 11/51

TRING, BROOK STREET (West side), The Silk Mill

II

Silk textile mill complex, now light engineering factories. 1824 for William Kay who bought the Manor of Tring in 1823, run by his brother from Macclesfield but leased to David Evans & Co. after 4 years and worked up to 1898. Mill reduced to 3-storeys in early C20, and stair tower built against front in 2nd World War when floors strengthened by steel beams below old floors. Red brick with slate roofs, E front of W range now painted. A courtyard complex with tall W range 150 x 35ft originally of 5 floors but now of 3, lower S range of 2 and 3 floors 100 x 35ft, and the long single-storey E range facing the mill and backing onto Brook Street built to lodge children working in the mill, later used as offices and workshops. The N range has brick walls, timber floors of joists with boards below and above carried on heavy timber cross-beams linked by lesser beams, and pitched roof on re-used original wide-span queen-post timber trusses. Wide eaves soffit and projected verge both on shaped brackets and cantilevered purlins and wallplates. Close-spaced rows of uniform windows with gauged brick cambered arches and wooden small-paned recessed windows, some with central 1/3 a top-hung opening light. Step in W wall at vertical brick shaft perhaps for belting. Aqueduct runs at high level on W side of mill and an enclosed large iron waterwheel 22ft diameter and 6ft wide survives in situ at junction of W end S ranges. Lying E-W it revolved clockwise as viewed from N, has buckets, iron cross-bracing, and heavy 4-flanged iron axle. The drive is taken from a rack along the rim. S range has tall 2-storeys and basement hipped roof block at E end facing the road which is designed to appear as a 3-windows long symmetrical house in red brick with cambered gauged arches, stone sills, broad giant stucco pilasters at each end above plinth with paired brackets, single at each end. Recessed sash windows with 15/10 small panes and 3-centred gauged arch to central doorway with threshold 1m above pavement. Half-glazed door and 8-pane basement windows. This building has painted brick interior walls and a wide relieving arch across the rear wall where it adjoins a 2-storeys warehouse with wooden roof trusses and ground higher on S side so that it appears as single storey. The W part of the S range is a taller engine house with pilastered S wall, 5 windows in the N wall facing the yard, a glazed top-hamper to the iron framed roof, and massive vaulted base last used to support electrical generators but former square brick chimney to NW now demolished. When described in 1840 there was a 25hp steam engine and 16hp of water power, 500 pairs of hands consisting of 40 men, 140 women and 320 children. Gerald Massey the Chartist poet and prototype of Felix Holt in George Eliot's novel entered the mill here in 1836 aged eight. (Branch Johnson(1970)67-70, 177).

Listing NGR: SP9253311884

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:: 355688
Legacy System:: LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Branch Johnson, W, The Industrial Archaeology of Hertfordshire, (1970), 67-70 177

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.