Fearnley's Mill

Reasons for Designation

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Details

679/0/10343 OLD LANE 01-MAR-11 DEAN CLOUGH (Off) FEARNLEY'S MILL

GV II Former mill, 1830s.

MATERIALS: coursed dressed sandstone with slate roof.

PLAN: it is aligned roughly north-south, lying immediately north of the Hebble Brook. It has four storeys plus a basement which is only visible externally on the west side owing to the fall in ground levels, and is slightly trapezoid in shape.

ELEVATIONS: the east elevation has fourteen windows with entrances in the fourth bay from the south and the end bay to the north. The west elevation has twelve windows, with a covered footbridge leading from the first floor into Crossley's Mill which runs at a right angle to it. The south end is four windows deep, while the north elevation has a central run of taking-in doors, now converted to windows, with single windows to each side, those on the right now blocked. The windows have stone cills and lintels and C20 metal frames.

INTERIOR: it is not of fireproof construction and has timber beams, joists and decking with cast iron columns with line shafting. Undergoing conversion to offices at the time of inspection.

HISTORY: James Akroyd and Sons occupied a mill in the Hebble valley north of Halifax from 1815. Several buildings including a spinning mill (Fearnley's Mill) and a warehouse (Crossley's Mill), were built by Akroyds in the 1830s, while the original Bowling Dyke Mill, a spinning mill, was destroyed by fire in 1847. It was quickly rebuilt, with a first phase to the east opened in 1849 and a second phase to the west in 1851. Fearnley's Mill appears to have been in existence by 1836, when a building with the same footprint is shown on a Rating Valuation map of that date, owned by Jonathon Akroyd. This is confirmed in the OS Five Foot Plan surveyed in 1847, where it is identified as Bowling Dyke Mills (Woolen), a multi-storey spinning mill. Documentary and fabric evidence suggest that the mill was partly destroyed by fire in 1843, and the top two storeys were rebuilt using some of the fire-damaged stone.

The Akroyds were engaged in worsted manufacture and their complex spread over a considerable area to the east and north of the Crossley complex at Dean Clough, including the Haley Hill complex and Copley Mill. Akroyds, along with Crossleys, were major industrialists and benefactors of Halifax. Their business suffered decline from the 1890s, and various parts of the site were sold into different ownerships. Fearnley's Mill was owned by the British Cotton and Wool Dyers' Association until 1976, when it was sold to Norman Fearnley Ltd and eventually became part of the Dean Clough complex in the early C21.

SOURCES: Fitzgerald, Dr R, Proposal to Rationalise the Current Listed Building Situation at Dean Clough Mills, Halifax, Structural Perspectives, (2009)

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: Fearnley's Mill at Dean Clough, Halifax, a former worsted spinning mill of the 1830s, is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * Integrated complex: Fearnley's Mill is part of an integrated mill complex producing worsted * Regional significance: Halifax was an important centre for the worsted industry in the C19 * Industrial process: the mill demonstrates the industrial process it housed in its multi-storey structure with surviving features such as taking-in openings and cast iron columns with line shafting * Date: it is an early example of a multi-storey mill as part of an integrated complex, and is the earliest mill building at the nationally important group of mill buildings at Dean Clough

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

507810

Legacy System:

LBS

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