Monument record 2608/47 - Hope Mills

Hope Mills A and B were built in 1876 for J Nicholson . They were 5 storeys high under a central pediment with a clock. There was a water tower at the Owen Street end. It was demolished in 1985. 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.