Monument record 2608/42 - Bridge Street Mills

Silk weaving mill built as one of 7 pedimented mills built in Macclesfield between 1811 & 1831. It was a powered by a beam engine. It had 50 weavers in 1818, and was expanded to 3 mills in 1838, by Critchley and Brimsley. Weaving sheds were added in 1871. 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.