Shaw Lodge Mill Office Building, Halifax, Calderdale

Description

679/0/10317
03-APR-07

HALIFAX
SHAW LANE
(West side)
Shaw Lodge Mill Office Building

GV
II*

Office, 1865, possibly by Charles Barry, in coursed dressed gritstone with ashlar dressings. Two storeys with basement/cellar, under a hipped slate roof. Front elevation has 5 first floor 1-over-1 vertical sash windows above a string course. Central entrance with solid panelled double doors with rectangular plain overlight, set within an architrave of pilasters with consoles supporting the cornice. A broad flight of shallow steps leads up to the entrance, narrowing at the top and flanked by a low stone wall. To either side, 2 1-over-1 windows with eared architraves, segmental arches and oversailing cornices. The eaves are dentilated. Wrought iron railings front the building. The left and right returns have 3 windows on each floor in the same style as those at the front. To the rear, the rise in ground level means no ground floor windows. Off-centre Venetian stair window with 2 windows to left and 1 to right. To the right of the building is an attached single storey garage, rebuilt in 1936 from original stables, in gritstone with a corrugated iron M-shape roof.

INTERIOR: Lobby leading to inner glazed double door. Entrance hall with encaustic tiled floor and coffered ceiling with decorative plaster work cornices and ceiling roses. Pillars and pilasters with fluted capitals, and 6-panelled doors with raised cornices. To the rear is an imperial staircase with wrought iron balusters and polished wood handrail, with a window to the rear of the building. To the left are three almost identical offices, each with ornate plaster ceiling rose, plaster panelled walls and dark marble fireplaces with semi-circular arched surrounds (grates lost). All windows have original shutters. Entrance to basement/cellar below the stairs. To the right, reception office with coffered ceiling and ceiling rose, linking with room to rear which contains a large safe with outer and inner doors. Inner double doors are panelled wood veneer over metal, with ornate brass handles and key plates. Shelves and small safes within.

First floor landing has pilasters and pillars, dentilled cornices and ceiling rose. Tall doors to boardroom to centre front with raised cornice. Boardroom has wood veneer panelled walls, fitted furniture and fire surround, probably not original. Large open office to left with coffered ceiling, ceiling roses, pilasters etc. Offices to right with plainer fittings.

HISTORY
The firm of John Holdsworth & Company was founded in 1822 by John Holdsworth, whose family were already woollen textile manufacturers and merchants in Shibden then in Halifax. They specialised in worsted cloth, produced by hand loom weavers, but developments in mechanised spinning led in 1822 to John Holdsworth establishing his first spinning mill to join a growing number of worsted spinning mills in Halifax. The location of this is uncertain, but by 1825 he was purchasing land at Shaw Lodge and his first mill on the site is dated to 1830. This is the extant 'No 1 Mill' on the present site.

Further developments in the industry led to the gradual mechanisation of the weaving part of the process, and the first power loom weaving shed was begun at Shaw Lodge in 1844. This was accompanied at around the same time by further spinning mills and, in 1852, by an extension to the weaving shed. The No 2 Mill, dated to between 1831 and 1839, was to the south of the extant buildings, and at right angles to them leading eastwards to the Hebble Brook. It is unclear whether what is named as No 3 Mill and dated 1850 in a plan of 1925 was built as such, as earlier plans call it a warehouse, though it was certainly in existence by 1855, standing to the north of and adjoining No 1 Mill.

The mills appear to have been steam powered by 1839, with separate engines for each of the two mills. By 1855 a separate engine house, boiler house and chimney were built on the eastern side of the site, with underground power connections to the mills. By this time, the firm had invested in Jacquard looms and in 1851 won a medal at the Great Exhibition for their worsted cloths. Branches in Bradford and London were run by members of the family, and John Holdsworth had a house, Shaw Lodge, close by the western side of the site, now demolished.

Continuing prosperity led to the construction of the 7-storey warehouse to the north of No 3 Mill in 1862, and the separate office block with adjoining stable in 1865. A workshop and shed at the north end of the site, and a tower and timekeepers office at the northern end of the weaving sheds were added in 1876.

Since then, alterations to the buildings have included the loss of the No 2 Mill and the southern end of No 1 Mill, the reconstruction of the stables, extensions to the engine house and boiler house, and the reroofing of most of the weaving sheds and mills. The firm continues to operate up to 2006, having survived the demise of most woollen manufacturing in the country, specializing in the production of moquette for the bus and coach trade. The site is due to be redeveloped.

SOURCES:
www.holdsworth.co.uk, "over 200 years in the textile industry"
R.C.H.M.E. 'Yorkshire Textile Mills 1770-1930', 1992
Wrathmell, S., Unpub. notes

SUMMARY OF IMPORTANCE
The office building at this mill fulfils the national criteria for designation in terms of its architectural interest, through its association with Charles Barry and its intrinsic quality, the survival of its original form and layout which reflects the purposes for which it was designed, and the intactness of a wealth of original features. It rises above the basic level of the criteria as a crucial element and focal point of an important and largely intact complex which contains examples of a full range of buildings associated with a nineteenth century worsted mill, including mills, weaving sheds and warehouses. The completeness of the site makes it of high importance in the history of this nationally significant industry.

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British Listed Buildings

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Shaw Lodge Mill Office Building

A Grade II* Listed Building in Halifax, Calderdale

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