Summary
A cotton spinning mill of 1855 with alterations, by millwrights Knight and Wood for Richard Smethurst and Co in red brick with buff sandstone details.
Reasons for Designation
Canal Mill, Chorley, a cotton spinning mill of 1855 with alterations, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* as a relatively early example of a large cotton spinning mill in Lancashire;
* it displays an unusual degree of external embellishment for its date, with brick pilasters with stepped channels, and stone plinth, sill band, sills, lintels and decorative dressings;
* the original form survives relatively well externally and internally and its interior retains good decorative features and evidence for the power transmission system including a rare in-situ line-shaft bearing.
History
Canal Mill was built in 1855 by the millwrights and foundry Knight and Wood of Bolton, who supplied the structural cast iron and a beam engine to power the mill. It was built for Richard Smethurst and Co, as proudly announced in the Preston Chronicle of 6 January 1855; ‘New Cotton Mill. We are glad to inform our readers that a first-class cotton mill is about to be erected at Northgate, near Botany Bay, within Chorley. One of the enterprising firm of Messrs R Smethurst and Co, cotton spinners, Chorley, is the spirited projector of the new mill, which will afford employment to a large number of hands, and be a great benefit to the neighbourhood in which it is built.’ The Smethursts were a major family in the industrial history of Chorley and its cotton industry. The mill was relatively large for the time, comparable with some mills in the large towns like Manchester and Preston, and in the 1880s was operating 45,000 spindles (the average spinning firm in 1870 operated 16,872, and in 1890 36,504). It bears a stylistic resemblance to Ilex Mill in Rossendale (National Heritage List for England – NHLE – entry 1072788) of 1856, although that is stone-built. The mill was built for spinning the fine yarns for which Chorley became noted, along with Preston, Bolton and Manchester.
The fireproof structure at the mill’s south end, of brick jack arches supported by iron beams and columns, is thought to be original (the columns being the same 1855 Knight and Wood design as the rest of the mill). Jack arches were also developed primarily for fireproofing, and this end is the likely original location of the likeliest causes of fire in a spinning mill (after the boiler house), namely the engine, power transmission and preparatory processes; especially batting or scutching the raw cotton to clean it, which produced large quantities of flammable dust. The central bay of the south end, where there is no jack arch, might indicate the siting of the engine. An arched opening at the south end of the east wall (now blocked) would connect with the boiler house and could have carried steam pipes to the engine, while central bearing boxes in the cross wall at the south end of the mill suggest a vertical shaft in this position, with bevel gears at each floor; a central engine would have needed the simplest arrangement to supply power to this shaft. A similar arrangement is found at Chorley’s Abbey Mill (NHLE entry 1433925).
In June 1860, advertisements were placed in several Lancashire newspapers for five minders for ‘self-actors’ (automatic spinning mules) at Canal Mill, indicating that some at least of its machinery was of this modern kind, which did not fully replace hand-operated mules in the spinning industry until the end of the C19 (five minders could operate ten automatic mules). That year the mill was also sold to W and C Widdows. Wood Bros supplied a high-pressure cylinder in 1896, but an external engine house and rope race that are named on a 1910 plan also appear to be shown on the 1910 OS 1:2,500 map, surveyed in 1909. This suggests that the engine might have been replaced in 1896.
Canal Mill was again sold in 1910 to the Hesketh company of Bolton, although the Widdows name continued in use. Hesketh’s are reported to have carried out substantial strengthening work to accommodate heavier spinning machinery. This might refer to the addition of iron ties between some of the columns and the walls on the top floor. However, the ties between the central columns here are of three different types, some of which have a lozenge decoration similar to Knight and Wood’s mark on the columns, and most of which are of a style which suggests they might be of early date. It is more likely that this refers to the rebuilding of the upper portion of the west and north walls and installation of a concrete ring beam around the top floor at lintel level, with a new parapet above.
The external rope race was no longer marked on the 1928 OS 1:2,500 map surveyed in 1927. By 1940, the mill was powered by a 550hp horizontal compound engine, manufactured by Hick, Hargreaves and Co. However, the mill was closed for much of the Second World War. In 1946, the mill was taken over by Crosses and Heatons of Bolton (still using the Widdows name). In 1950 coping stones are reported to have fallen from the mill. The mill remained in production until the late 1950s. The mill chimney, staff canteen, three-storey warehouse, and offices were demolished in the late 1960s (when the M61 motorway was built) and, in 1968, the mill was extended with a workshop for truck repairs. In 1994, First Investments Property Group converted the site to a retail tourist attraction, and restored the building at a cost of £9 million. This included adding the metal turrets with pointed roofs to the corners, and possibly inserting lifts although these may have replaced earlier lifts. The retail outlet closed in 2019. From 2021, a business park has been under construction around the site, and all of the former modern extensions have been removed.
Details
A cotton spinning mill of 1855 with alterations, by millwrights Knight and Wood for Richard Smethurst and Co.
MATERIALS: red brick and buff sandstone.
PLAN: a significant landmark standing to the west of the Lancaster Canal at Botany Bay, aligned roughly north-south and now facing the M61 motorway. An original single-storey office and strong room is expressed at the north end, and the north-west corner has a tower, probably for latrines.
EXTERIOR: of 20 x 7 bays and five storeys, in red brick laid to English Garden Wall bond with a punched stone plinth (partially obscured at the south end by raised ground levels), ground-floor sill band and pilasters with stepped channels to the angles and elsewhere. The windows are all replacements, mostly in metal. Most have original stone wedge lintels and stone sills, although there are some concrete replacements.
The front faces west and has a slender tower clasping the left corner, and 19 windows. The entrance is in the third bay from the right and is flanked by channelled pilasters, with windows stacked above a stone Classical door surround with pilasters, architrave and entablature. The latrine tower is an enlarged version of the right-hand corner pilaster, with recessed faces between the angle brickwork (and slit windows, boarded). The angles have later metal turrets with pointed roofs. The upper storey has a concrete lintel ring-beam and parapet with concrete coping and, to the north of the entrance bay, different brick above sill level. Above the entrance bay is a water-tank podium, incorporating elements of an original roof turret, and now topped by an ogee dome.
The north wall is similar, with the tower partially obscuring the right-hand angle pilaster, and seven windows per floor. A central single-storey projecting office has channelled corner pilasters and stone entablature, and one window per side. At the left are partial remains of former modern extensions. The upper floor has renewed brickwork above the sills.
The east wall has 20 windows per floor, with only the parapet renewed. Between bays 4 and 5 is a single channelled pilaster, which is interrupted at the second floor by a bearing box, and terminates above the ground floor (where the boiler house was originally attached). The left-hand corner pilaster also terminates above the ground floor, which is mostly painted. Bays 1 to 3 are in blind brickwork, with a blocked arched opening from the former boiler house into the spinning block, between bays 1 and 2. Bay 4 has deep-coursed stone to the ground floor, and a bearing box below the pilaster. Bays 5, 6, 7 and 9 have doorways formed by extended windows, and bays 10 and 11 have an inserted shopfront under a steel joist. Bay 8 has a large bearing box with massive stone sill and lintel. The 9 right-hand bays have remnants of former modern extensions, and blocked ground-floor windows, with inserted doorways in bays 12, 18 and 19. At the first floor, bays 1 to 3 have original blind windows, now infilled at the lower level, and bays 1 and 2 of the second floor also have original blind windows. Bay 12 has a blocked bearing box at the third floor, matching the mapped location of a former rope race.
The south wall is similar to the north wall, but has channelled pilasters flanking the outer bays, as well as the corner pilasters. It is currently (2023) partially obscured by raised temporary buildings housing former offices, which are attached at the first and second floor.
INTERIOR: the interior is divided by a cross wall to the north of the entrance. To the south of this, the construction is of brick jack arches supported by axial cast-iron beams and columns (to the ground, first and second floor ceilings, spanning only the central five bays to the second floor) To the north, the carding and spinning floors are of timber cross-beams and cast-iron columns, which hold the beams via a crush box at the column head. These are visible for the most part, although in some areas the ceilings have been boarded or the beams boxed in. To the top floor the columns support valley gutters (axial to the spinning floor, transverse to the south end), and the original roof structure (with cast-iron v-shaped gutters) and lath-and-plaster ceiling survive. The columns are original, several of them bearing a decorative founder’s mark up the face of the column with a lozenge at each end and the words ‘KNIGHT & WOOD. BOLTON. 1855’. Some original wide (around 7 inch) floorboards also survive.
To each floor the cross wall has a central bearing box in a stone surround; that to the ground floor is more elaborate and retains the broken ends of springing for projections running to the north. The central bay to the south end of the ground floor, where the engine was probably originally mounted, has no jack arch, but later concrete beam flooring which cuts across the bearing box. It is thought that a transverse iron beam forming part of the structure supporting the engine remains in situ here. Evidence of power transmission also includes a column with in-situ line-shaft hanger and pillow bearing in the south end of the ground floor, and another in the north-east corner retaining a bolting plate for a line-shaft hanger. To the top floor, the columns to the central aisle are linked by cast-iron beams. All are supported by swan-neck corbels where they fix to the columns, have curved drops beyond these fixings to lower the level of the tie to allow line shafting to pass over them, and retain fixings for pillow bearings to support the shaft. The four southernmost examples drop less at the ends but also have another drop in the centre. These ties are more decorative, with lozenge-shaped lightening holes and more embellishment of the central bearing support. Five at the north end have linear lightening holes and simpler bearing supports, while the remaining two examples have a solid web and plain bearing supports, but more graceful curves to the ends.
The columns connected by one of these latter ties are also tied to the outer columns by plain steel beams supported by shoes rather than corbels. In the south end, the central two columns are tied to the south wall by fish-bellied cast-iron beams with collars that clasp the column. The original stone winder stair survives in the west side of the entrance bay, with dressed rounded soffits to the stairs, and stone flag floors, The roof turret is altered (and with an added octagonal ogee dome) but retains elements of the original, including a stone door surround and entablature, parapet stones, timber gable wall-plates and a small section of surviving roof, now internal. The stair also retains a gauge for a water tank and some stone door surrounds and substantial timber doors. Inserted historic lifts also survive. The interior of the original office was not accessible, but the stone door surround survives with run-out chamfers and pintels for a security gate.
Some modern partitions divide parts of some floors, and a wooden stair has been inserted in the centre of the spinning floors between the second and third floors. A modern metal stair has also been inserted in the north-west corner, denying access to the former latrine tower. Some modern steelwork has also been inserted in the south-east corner of the third floor. The roof coverings have been replaced in corrugated steel.
