Whitley Willows Mill, Addle Croft Lane, Lepton

GEOGRAPHIC STUB
This page is a bare-bones entry for a specific location marked on an old map. More detailed information may eventually be added...

Details

  • appears on maps: 1892 [#43]
  • location: off Addle Croft Lane, Lepton
  • status: exists but under a different use
  • category: woollen mill
  • notes: positioned over Rods Beck along which the boundry line ran, the mill was partly in Lepton and partly in Whitley Upper

Discovering Old Huddersfield

Extract from Discovering Old Huddersfield (1993-2002) by Gordon & Enid Minter:

First shown on the 1780 enclosure map of Lepton, the mill was described as a tumming mill in 1793. In 1821 new tenants, the Wilkinsons, took over and added carding and slubbing to the original scribbling mill. The tenancy changed again in 1829 when the Tolsons of Dalton moved in and it was during their tenancy that many alterations were made including the demolition and rebuilding of the mill itself and, in fact, the oldest parts of the present mill date back to this renovation by the Tolsons. The Tolson family worked here until 1879 when the Kilner brothers took over. They traded successfully as yarn spinners until the Depression of the 1920s when the mill was closed. It stood empty for many years apart from a brief time during the Second World War when the building housed Italian prisoners of war. Then, in the early 1950s, Samuel Tweed and Co. installed thirty five looms and began the manufacture of blankets, travel rugs and fashion fabrics thus giving the mill a new lease of life which continues to this day.

Location