Warehouse of Haarlem Mill at the South West Side of Haarlem Mill, Wirksworth, Derbyshire

Description

Tape weaving mill, mid and late C19, and early C20.

MATERIALS: Coursed stone rubble and red brick with a gabled, slate covered roof. Part of the north section of the west elevation and the south gable is of coursed rubble stonework.

PLAN: Rectangular in plan, the southern section is marginally wider than that to the north and there is a small two-storey block attached to the centre of the west side.

EXTERIOR: The main elevation is three storeys high, 17 bays in length, and faced with brick upon a plinth, stone to the north and blue brick to the south. The window openings have simple segmental heads and brick sills, and hold six over five, small paned iron frames, most of which have a four pane, square, opening light. A vertical straight joint marks the division between the mid C19 building and its early C20 addition to the south, as does a change in the colour and surface finish of the brickwork.

Adjoining at the north east corner, between this range and Haarlem Mill is a range linking the two buildings and a single storey service building. These are of timber and sheet panelling for the most part. The single storey building may have been associated with the insertion of a gas engine in 1906, as may have been a building now lost but evidence for which survives in the form of marking on the east wall.

INTERIOR: The floors are open save for the ground-floor, which contains inserted partitions to create offices. Construction is of traditional timber floors on timber bridging beams, those in the southern addition being noticeably deeper. The beams in the south addition are carried on piers at the walls. At the north end each floor has a fireplace on the west side, that of the upper floor being bricked up. The fireplaces are likely to have formed one element of a ventilation system, evidence for which survives in the form of small covered openings in the walls at ceiling level. The roof trusses are queen post carrying a single rank of trenched purlins. The original end wall of the north section is visible at attic level, broken through when the south section was added. The north wall has been removed when the north extension was constructed. The north end of the attic contains C19 timber partitioning with doors, for storage, and also a surviving section of drive shafting against the east wall. Access through the floors is by two modern metal staircases, one to the north and one to the south.

HISTORY: The Haarlem Mill complex stands on the modest River Ecclesbourne. The world renowned industrialist Richard Arkwright leased the site in 1777 and by 1780 he had built Haarlem Mill a very early, if not the earliest, factory building designed to house a steam engine in association with cotton spinning.

Haarlem Mill was sold in 1792 and in 1815 was converted for tape weaving, said to have been for Maddley Hackett and Riley, smallware manufacturers of Derby. The name Haarlem Mill was acquired after a works in Derby of a similar name established in 1806. Silk weaving was carried on in part of the site in the 1820s and it subsequently passed through several hands until it was purchased by the Wheatcroft family, local tape manufacturers, in 1858. Around this time the mill manager was Samuel Evans, uncle of the novelist George Eliot (1818 -1890), who is thought to have based the characters Adam Bede and Dinah Morris, in her novel 'Adam Bede' (1859), on her uncle and aunt, and used Haarlem Mill as the inspiration for the mill in 'The Mill on the Floss' (1860).

The central six bays of this range were erected in the mid C19. Constructed of coursed rubble stone, the west elevation survives. The east elevation is a refacing of brickwork and is contemporary with a northern extension, thought to date to 1881; it does not appear on the Ordnance Survey map of 1880. A southern addition, almost doubling the length of the building, was added, according to map evidence, between 1900 and 1922, along with the two-storey west side block. Its building may have been part of the works which included the installation of a Crossley gas engine in 1906.

The Wheatcrofts were still the owners in 1906. Drawings for the new gas engine, held at the National Monuments Record Centre, show that the gas engine house was erected against the wall of the warehouse range and against the north side of a small engine house from which the warehouse range was driven.

The mill pond, which formerly extended close to the north side of the mill, has been pushed much further northwards to make room for the mid C20 industrial building to the north and the car park.

SOURCES:

Menuge A., The Cotton Mills of the Derbyshire Derwent in Industrial Archaeology Review Vol. XVI, No. 1, Autumn 1993

Calladine A, Fricker J. East Cheshire Textile Mills, RCHME, 1993

Falconer, K. Haarlem Mill, Old Building, unpublished report, RCHME 1988, NMR No. 076957

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION:

The Warehouse of Haarlem Mill is designated at Grade ll for the following principal reasons:

* It is a mid C19 mill, with later additions, which survives well and contains elements of internal interest, notably sections of line shafting and other evidence of drive, as well as fireplaces on the mill floors.

* The novelist George Eliot, is said to have based the characters Adam Bede and Dinah Morris in her novel 'Adam Bede' on her uncle, the early C19 mill manager, and his wife, and used Haarlem Mill as the inspiration for the mill in 'The Mill on the Floss'.

* It has considerable group value with Haarlem Mill and Haarlem House.

Listing NGR: SK2836652589

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