Building record 2608/68 - Albion Mill, London Road

<1> English Heritage, 2005, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest (Digital Archive). SCH4666.

Silk mill. Dated 1843, with later alterations. For Thomas Heapy. Red brick on rubble stone basement with sandstone dressings and slate roof. 4 storeys on basement. 15 bays, the central 5 bays slightly advanced. Giant pilasters mark the angles. Basement has fifteen C20 windows in original openings with timber lintels. Above, each floor has 15 four-pane metal windows in original openings with stone sills and lintels. Timber eaves brackets. Stone parapet to central bays with raised pointed panel inscribed 'Albion Mill 1843'. Hipped roof. Rear elevation has projecting stair towers at each end, and central projecting privy tower. 3 similar bays to south elevation, with 6-storey, 4-bay wing to east. This wing has similar, slightly smaller windows to each floor and segmental voussoired archway through the building to lower right. Stair tower forms end of small cross wing beyond, with stone architrave to entrance at base of stairs. INTERIOR: internal structure has cast-iron columns carrying timber beams, with timber roof.

<2> Calladine A & Fricker J, 1993, East Cheshire Textile Mills, /87,92-3,100 (Y) (Book). SCH1093.

Integral engine house, containing stone engine mounting block. Adjacent 2 storey weaving shed.

<3> Ashmore, O, 1982, The Industrial Archaeology of North West England, /45 (Book). SCH3181.

Ashmore gives date as 1845.

<4> Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Revised List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest, Borough of Macclesfield 1994/ 87 (Unpublished Report). SCH4570.

<5> Garry Miller: Architectural Historian, 2018, Albion Mill, London Road, Macclesfield, Cheshire East: Historic Building Report, R4184 (Client Report). SCH8499.

Building and photographic survey undertaken between April 2017 to February 2018 of part of grade II listed Albion Mill (CHER 2608/68), comprising the weaving shed extension dating to the 1850s which was added to north side of the original silk mill building. The survey was done in advance of conversion of the weaving shed into residential apartments. The surveyed building consists of three elements: firstly, the two-storey weaving shed, an L-shaped block, seven bays wide by eleven bays deep, which wraps around the north and north-east sides of the original 1843 building; secondly, a two-storey latrine block added on the north side of the weaving shed probably in the 1860s; thirdly an L-shaped mid twentieth century, single-storey northlight extension to the north.

The survey concludes that the significance of the weaving shed lies in its external form and street scene presence, as the interior has been stripped of its machinery and has been in use as offices. However, the floors and roof structures, which are supported on cast iron columns, are considered of importance. Together with the adjacent London Road Mill (CHER 2608/69), Albion Mill makes a powerful statement of Macclesfield's nineteenth century role as the world's foremost centre for producing finished silk.

English silk manufacture prospered after the prohibition of French and Asian imports between 1698 and 1701. The production of silk buttons had been a thriving cottage industry in Macclesfield since the seventeenth century, but the introduction of a factory system in the eighteenth century resulted in a huge expansion of the industry. Albion Mill, and its neighbour London Mill, were among the last of the large Macclesfield silk mills built before the decline of the industry began in the mid-nineteenth century, owing to a growing preference for cottons and French silk. Albion Mill remained in production until at least the early 1890s, and after became the premises of embroiderers A W Hewitsons, whose name is painted on the rear elevation of the weaving shed.