Building record 2608/10 - Royal George Mills

Built in the late 1840s, with a high top floor to hold Jacquard silk weaving looms. Bought by J. Smale & Co., 1872-1885. Macclesfield was one of two silk production centres in Cheshire. Silk buttons had been made here since Elizabethan times. Silk throwing (Twisting silk threads together) began as a domestic industry and became a mechanised process with the use of water powered machinery in the mid 18th century. The industrial revolution introduced power weaving in the late 19th century and many large mills were built at this time