Monument record 2608/108/0 - Site of Dale Street Mill, Macclesfield

<1> Ordnance Survey, 1873-4, Metric Ten Foot Scale Town Plan of Macclesfield (Maps and Plans). SCH4489.

The 1886 town plan depicts a chemical works at this location. Buildings are located on the north-western, north-eastern, and south-western sides of the area around a possible yard. The entrance is via a covered area or archway through buildings adjacent to Dale Street in the northern part of the site.

<2> See map for surveyor, c.1837-51, Cheshire Tithe Maps and Awards, EDT 254/2, 1849 (Maps and Plans). SCH3266.

The plot (247) is descibed as pasture. The plot name is Fountain Dale.

<3> Calladine A & Fricker J, 1993, East Cheshire Textile Mills, p.163 (Book). SCH1093.

Included in the gazetteer as Dale Street Mill.

<4> Armstrong Architects Ltd, 2010, Dale Street Mill, Mill Street, Macclesfield (Client Report). SCH5406.

Records show that in 1860 Thomas Berry occupied the site as a silk dyer and finisher. It may be that the description “chemical works” refers to the silk dying process. In 1906 William Hyde, who was a silk broker, occupied the site. In 1916 the Hyde brothers folded silk handkerchiefs and occupied both floors of the building. In 1932 C.J. Russell & Co Ltd. moved onto the site and during the war made leather pay books and pass covers. After 1945 ladies’ underwear was made and a knitwear machine was installed. Garments were sent for dying to Thorp Street Dyeworks. C.J. Russell continued to use the building in to the 1980s, though part of it was rented out and used as a computer software warehouse. In 1988 the site was sold to Madge Designs (clothing business) who occupied the building until 2006.

The ground floor of the building originally consisted of two elements; a large high-ceilinged space which functioned as the ‘factory’ and has been (vertically) subdivided in later years, attached to a smaller masonry built lower-ceilinged part which presumably functioned as the ‘administrative’ area. In the factory, a mixture of cast iron and timber columns support the floor above, and with regularly spaced and numerous windows around the four surrounding walls, the layout and structure maximise the amount and flexibility of naturally lit and ventilated space. At first floor level above the factory, the pattern is similar, but ceilings are much lower, and the main beams span the full internal width of approximately eleven metres without any columns to support them. At the front (North) end, the administrative first floor is at a lower level than the main floor and this is expressed externally by the lower window height. A further building known as the ‘textile warehouse’ aligns with the gable end of the main building to form an ‘L’ shape. The warehouse has a corrugated asbestos roof with a triangular gable end rather clumsily abutting the eaves of the main building. At its junction with the main building there is an opening in the form of a ‘pend’, which gives access to the yard behind. The warehouse is accessed from inside the pend, with its own flight of stairs. The first-floor bridges over the pend to join the main building.