| Description | Warehouse and mills forming part of the Shaw Lodge Mills complex, Skircoat (SE 09703 24197). 1862 warehouse and two mills dated 1830 and 1850.
'Warehouse, 1862, in coursed dressed gritstone with ashlar dressings. Irregularly shaped floor plan to accommodate narrow sloping site with roads to either side. 5 storeys above ground at north west end, 6 plus basement at south end. Parapet round roof with dentilation at its base.
West face has altered vehicle entrance to the right and a blocked window to the left, with 2 2 over 4 wood framed windows on each of remaining 4 floors. South west face has 10 2 over 4 windows, then loading doors, then 7 more windows. Additional row of 5 windows to the left and 6 to the right of the loading doors at new ground level, with a personal door at the right hand end. Hoist in place over the loading doors.
North face has 14 windows, with central block of 5 breaking forward, 3 windows on north east corner and 5 on east face. An external metal fire escape stair runs up from the west end of the north face.
At the south east corner is the privy block in Italianate style, which breaks forward to the east and rises 1 storey above the rest with a pyramidal slate roof. It has ashlar stonework and round arched windows, 4 to each floor, separated by pilasters and divided by projecting string courses on each floor, with a blocked round arched entrance on the ground floor where the ashlar is rock faced. Interior: a series of open sheds with iron supporting columns, some with additional, later supports, and extending into an additional basement floor to the south. Top floor open to roof structure with original A frame wooden trusses. Linked by internal doors to adjoining mill buildings.
Mill, 1830 and 1850, in coursed dressed gritstone with ashlar dressings with C20 replacement metal sheet roofs.
Mill No 1, dating to 1830, has 2 over 4 or 1 over 4 wood framed windows on 2 storeys, with 14 windows to the front (west facing) elevation plus a single window at the southern end in a forward projecting block. Entrance at north end. There is an extra, lower storey at the southern end because of the drop in ground level. The southern end has several blocked windows at different levels, and part of its upper gable end rebuilt in brick. The rear (east facing) elevation has 14 windows on 5 storeys, plus one bay in a tower rising above the roof level. Some windows blocked at ground and first floor.
Mill No 3, dating to 1850, has a forward projecting block of 3 windows at the southern end of the west elevation, with an entrance on the south side. Continuing north are 7 windows over 3 storeys, a central, gabled block breaking forward, of 5 windows with an extra storey in the gable and wider windows in the centre, probably adapted from loading doors, then a further 7 windows. 3 northernmost bays are ashlar faced at ground floor level, with blind segmental arches above the central window and the entrance to the north.
Interior: mainly open sheds with free standing machinery, ceilings supported by iron columns; those in No 1 Mill individually stamped with the manufacturer's name and date 'BATES 1830'. Fireproof vaulted construction to ceilings. Some original floors and staircases, some later insertions. Office spaces inserted at the junctions of the component buildings.
HISTORY The firm of John Holdsworth and Company was founded in 1822 by John Holdsworth, whose family were already woollen textile manufacturers and merchants in Shibden then in Halifax. They specialised in worsted cloth, produced by hand loom weavers, but developments in mechanised spinning led in 1822 to John Holdsworth establishing his first spinning mill to join a growing number of worsted spinning mills in Halifax. The location of this is uncertain, but by 1825 he was purchasing land at Shaw Lodge and his first mill on the site is dated to 1830. This is the extant `No 1 Mill' |