Bent Ley Mill, Meltham

Bent Ley Mill is a former silk-throwing mill situated at the junction of Huddersfield Road and Bent Ley Road, at Meltham Mills near Meltham.

History

It was built around 1840 to produce yarn from raw silk. Its warehouse as built with a fireproof ground floor.[1] A dyehouse was added to the mill complex in 1890.

A small number of houses were built for mill workers on the Huddersfield Road side of the mill.[2]

Historic England Listing

  • Grade II
  • first listed 6 April 1967
  • listing entry number 1183859

BENT LEY ROAD MELTHAM (North side). Bent Ley Mill. Silk-throwing mill (raw silk) comprising warehouse and office block, attached shed and engine house with boiler house and separate chimney. 1840 for Charles Brook Coursed gritstone and ashlar outer walls, brick vaulted front range on cast-iron beams with parallel-sided flanges, hipped slate and part-glazed roofs, cast iron roof and supports in rear shed. Original 2-storey 7-bay office and warehouse block, 2 bays deep, the central three bays break forward under a pediment with a central clock face. Right return: an upper floor taking-in door, plain stone surround, altered late C20. Interior: the front office / warehouse range has a brick vaulted ground floor; central staircase and a stone fireplace in the SE room. Original wide arched openings into the rear shed from the 1840 office range and a narrow doorway into the shed from the central bay. First floor: S corner office with moulded ceiling cornice, 6-panel door, architraves to windows with panelled shutters, fireplace with plain stone surround and moulded shelf. Rear shed: 6 x 10 bays. Cast iron columns have moulded caps and slots for beams and arched open-work trusses carrying the north-light roof. The outside half-width bays have simpler trusses of tie, strut and principal form. I-section beams running the full length of the shed carry rain-water gutters; inverted T-section beams with inverted fish-bellied profiles carried line shafting, each truss drilled for bracket fixings. The SE wall has 5 doorways probably serving privies before late C19 additions. An ashlar block in the NE (back) wall marks the site of the power transmission shaft from the narrow beam-engine house surviving beyond. Also attached, the boiler house, NE of engine house, with freestanding octagonal-section tapering chimney to SE, cap removed and with iron banding. History; Charles Brook was a member of the family who built Meltham cotton mills. He developed the silk business in the 1830s and built this mill in 1840, recorded as 'Brook and Nephews, silk throwsters, Bentlee Mills'. Reference: J. Hughes, The History of the Township of Meltham, 1866.

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Location

Links

Notes and References

  1. Yorkshire Textile Mills: 1770-1930 (1992) by Colum Giles & Ian H. Goodall, page 54.
  2. These houses can be viewed on Google Street View.