Mather Lane Mill

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Mather Lane No 2 Mill beside the Bridgewater Canal. The warehouse is shown to the left. Flickr - ronsaunders47 - LEEDS-LIVERPOOL CANAL @ LEIGH. 13.jpg
Mather Lane No 2 Mill beside the Bridgewater Canal. The warehouse is shown to the left.

Mather Lane Mills was a complex of cotton mills built by the Bridgewater Canal in Bedford, Leigh in Lancashire, England. The No 2 mill and its former warehouse are grade II listed buildings.

Cotton mill factory housing powered spinning or weaving machinery for the production of yarn or cloth from cotton

A cotton mill is a building housing spinning or weaving machinery for the production of yarn or cloth from cotton, an important product during the Industrial Revolution in the development of the factory system.

Bridgewater Canal canal

The Bridgewater Canal connects Runcorn, Manchester and Leigh, in North West England. It was commissioned by Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, to transport coal from his mines in Worsley to Manchester. It was opened in 1761 from Worsley to Manchester, and later extended from Manchester to Runcorn, and then from Worsley to Leigh.

Bedford, Greater Manchester

Bedford, a suburb of Leigh, Greater Manchester is one of three ancient townships, Bedford, Pennington and Westleigh, that merged in 1875 to form the town of Leigh. Historically, Bedford was in Lancashire.

Contents

History

The Mather Lane Company was formed at a meeting in the Black Horse public house in Leigh. Thomas Smith, a self-educated man was voted to the chair and Richard Thomas Marsh became its managing director from its inception until 1920. The first mill's working capital was £60,000 when it became operational in 1878. A second mill opened in 1883 and the third in 1891. In the 1920s the company was merged into Combined Egyptian Mills Ltd. [1]

Architecture

Mather Lane Mill No 3 Brooklands Mill Mather Mill No 3 (Brooklands Mill), Leigh, Wigan.JPG
Mather Lane Mill No 3 Brooklands Mill

The second Mather Lane Mill is a Grade II listed cotton spinning mill on the north bank of the Bridgewater Canal. It was built in 1882 to the designs of Bradshaw and Gass of Bolton and is notable for its severe classical elevations. It is an important early factory design by the architects and has features unusual for its date including a square plan, flat roof and its partly internal engine house. The mill has six storeys and a basement built in brick in English garden wall bond with panelled pilasters at the corners. Three-storey carding sheds on the south side are parallel to the canal and set obliquely to main mill. Its engine house is on the north side and its tower at the north-west corner is panelled with moulded string courses. The tower rises above parapet level where there are large lunettes below a blind arcade of round-headed arches, parapet and it has a pyramidal roof. [2]

Listed building Collection of protected architectural creations in the United Kingdom

A listed building, or listed structure, is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, Cadw in Wales, and the Northern Ireland Environment Agency in Northern Ireland.

Bradshaw Gass & Hope is an English firm of architects founded in 1862 by Jonas James Bradshaw (1837–1912). The style "Bradshaw Gass & Hope" was adopted after J. J. Bradshaw's death and referred to the remaining partners John Bradshaw Gass and Arthur John Hope.

Bolton town in Greater Manchester, in the North West of England

Bolton is a town in Greater Manchester in North West England. A former mill town, Bolton has been a production centre for textiles since Flemish weavers settled in the area in the 14th century, introducing a wool and cotton-weaving tradition. The urbanisation and development of the town largely coincided with the introduction of textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution. Bolton was a 19th-century boomtown, and at its zenith in 1929 its 216 cotton mills and 26 bleaching and dyeing works made it one of the largest and most productive centres of cotton spinning in the world. The British cotton industry declined sharply after the First World War, and by the 1980s cotton manufacture had virtually ceased in Bolton.

The mill's six by ten bays contain iron-framed windows. The east and west elevations have large windows with continuous central iron box columns rising through the first to fourth floors. The north and south elevations have single-light windows. Inside the ceilings are supported by iron girders on Tuscan columns. [2]

Bay (architecture) space defined by the vertical piers, in a building

In architecture, a bay is the space between architectural elements, or a recess or compartment. Bay comes from Old French baee, meaning an opening or hole.

Tuscan order

The Tuscan order is in effect a simplified Doric order, with un-fluted columns and a simpler entablature with no triglyphs or guttae. While relatively simple columns with round capitals had been part of the vernacular architecture of Italy and much of Europe since at least Etruscan architecture, the Romans did not consider this style to be a distinct architectural order. Instead the Tuscan order, presented as a standardized formal order, is an invention of Italian Renaissance writers largely motivated by nationalism.

Mill No 3, also known as Brooklands Mill, was constructed on the opposite (south) side of the Bridgewater Canal.

Warehouse

Mather Lane in 1976 Mather Lane Bridge 1976 - geograph.org.uk - 1766348.jpg
Mather Lane in 1976

The mill's former warehouse on the opposite side of Mather Lane is also grade II listed. It was built around 1882, probably also to designs by Bradshaw and Gass. It is a plain brick structure with three storeys overlooking the canal. It has hoists and taking-in bays on the front and canal elevations. [3]

See also

Leigh is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, Greater Manchester, England. The town, together with its suburbs of Bedford, Westleigh and Pennington, contains 33 listed buildings that are recorded in the National Heritage List for England. Of these, four are listed at Grade II*, the middle of the three grades, and the others are at Grade II, the lowest grade.

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Rochdale Branch Canal

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Beehive Mill

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Havelock Mills

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Leigh Spinners

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Swan Lane Mills

Swan Lane Mills is a former cotton mill complex in Bolton, Greater Manchester. All three mills are Grade II* listed buildings. The mills were designed by Stott and Sons of Oldham. When completed, the double mill was the largest spinning mill in the world. It was granted Grade II* listed status on 26 April 1974. Number 3 Mill was separately listed as Grade II* on the same day.

Manchester Stock Exchange

The Manchester Stock Exchange, also known as the Northern Stock Exchange, is a Grade II listed building at 2–6 Norfolk Street, Manchester. It was built between 1904 and 1906 by Bradshaw, Gass and Hope, the Bolton architectural practice responsible for many of Manchester's iconic buildings such as the Royal Exchange. The first stock exchange in Manchester opened in 1836, and its function was to raise capital through joint stock issues for manufacturers, mineral extractors and railway companies. It cost £86,000 to build.

Stockport Central Library public library in Stockport, UK

Stockport Central Library is a Carnegie library in Stockport Greater Manchester England. It was built in 1913-15 to designs by Bradshaw, Gass and Hope in the Edwardian Baroque style and as of 2018 continues to serve as Stockport's largest library.

Astley Bridge Mill

Astley Bridge Mill or Holden Mill is a former cotton mill in the district of Astley Bridge in Bolton, Greater Manchester, England which has since been converted into an apartment building. Constructed in 1926 for Sir John Holden & Sons Ltd, it was the last cotton mill to be built in Bolton and is a Grade II listed building.

References

Notes

  1. ↑ Lunn 1958, p. 268
  2. 1 2 Historic England, "Mather Lane Mill (1356246)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 20 February 2016
  3. ↑ Historic England, "Former warehouse immediately north west of Dick Mather Bridge, Mather Lane (1261878)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 20 February 2016

Bibliography

Coordinates: 53°29′35″N2°30′32″W / 53.493°N 2.509°W / 53.493; -2.509

Hall Lane and Mather Lane Cotton Spinning Mills, Leigh, 1929 from Britain from above

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