IS THERE TROUBLE AT T’MILL?
“IT’S NOT necessarily the architectural detail that makes it special, it’s the sheer vastness of what’s before us,” says Jenna Richardson, gazing up at Hunslet Mills by the side of the Aire in Leeds.
Richardson is a chartered building surveyor and a leading figure in Leeds Civic Trust. Hunslet Mills were built in the late 1830s as one of the last of the great flax spinning mills that helped to establish Leeds as an industrial giant and Yorkshire as the textiles centre of the world.
Today, though, Hunslet Mills are an empty shell. Despite being a listed building, the complex is in poor condition and on the Heritage at Risk Register compiled by English Heritage. Along with the neighbouring Victoria Mills, the site is now owned by property developers but no development has taken place and you begin to wonder if these relics of the Industrial Revolution have been forgotten and left to crumble.
Leeds Civic Trust has been working with English Heritage and Leeds City Council to survey historical buildings just like this, assessing their condition and whether they are at risk of decay or even collapse.
“It’s important we preserve our heritage for future generations,” says Richardson. Water, she says, is one of the biggest dangers to derelict buildings. “Once water gets in, it leads to damage and the whole thing could become structurally unsafe. If the building can be kept watertight, then it should remain stable.”
Hunslet and Victoria Mills are not alone in their predicament as apparently neglected reminders of the textiles heyday. In nearby Holbeck is Temple Mill, one of Yorkshire’s most impressive industrial buildings. An unusual single storey mill, built in 1843, the counting house is a copy of the Temple of Horus at Edfu.
It represented the zenith of John Marshall’s legendary flax and linen empire. You can’t see so much of it today, however, because part of the front is shored up with scaffolding and covered with protective sheeting.
Over in Bradford the story is no better. Between Valley Road and Canal Road is the sorry sight of Midland Mills. They date from the 1870s, when they were built for Jeremiah Ambler and Sons, spinners of specialist yarns such as mohair.
Now, though, their condition is decrepit. And just over the road is the Bradford Conditioning House built in the early 1900s by the city council for quality control of cloth. Now its ornate detail is at odds with the boardedup windows and the brazen for-sale banner.
English Heritage’s Heritage at Risk Register also mentions Low Mills at Keighley, Waterloo Mill at Silsden, Westwood Mills at Linthwaite near Huddersfield and even parts of the visually stunning Manningham Mills in Bradford.
It seems that parts of Yorkshire’s textile heritage is in danger of crumbling, so where does the blame lie? Tammy Whitaker is director of planning and conservation for English Heritage in Yorkshire. She explains that local authorities can serve an urgent works notice on owners that don’t maintain listed buildings, forcing them to carry out repairs, but she understands the difficulties being faced by all sides.
“With their sound construction and big floor space, mills are great for reuse,” she says. “There’s no reason why they can’t be adapted to modern uses but the recession has not made it viable for developers to take things forward. In the meantime, we try to negotiate with owners to do the right thing, even if it means just making mills wind and watertight and mothballing them until conditions are right for redevelopment.”
Nigel Grizzard, chief executive of Our Northern Mills, an organisation that seeks to kick-start regeneration, also blames the recession. “Regenerating a mill is harder than it seems. Up until 2008 things were happening but then regeneration stopped. In a lot of cases, old mills were destined for apartments but then suddenly there weren’t the people to buy them and work ground to a halt. It’s all about demand.
“We need to get confidence back and the finance on track.” He sounds a cautious note of optimism: “There is talk about things possibly beginning to happen now. I get the feeling things are coming back but places like Bradford are at the back of the queue.”
Grizzard says some mills will inevitably be lost. “There are perhaps hundreds of mills in Yorkshire that are underused, disused or derelict. It would be wonderful to regenerate them all but we can’t. It’s a case of picking and choosing.”
There are good regeneration schemes of former textile buildings. “The Bradford Wool Exchange was empty for years and years,” says Grizzard. “When I came north in 1976, it was a forgotten building. But then it began to be used for an antiques market. Bradford Festival used it. Then Waterstone’s came along and said, ‘how about a bookshop?’ Now look at it – it’s a fantastic building.”
Another bright example – he calls it “the jewel of the North” – is Victoria Mills at Shipley, now a development of 400 sought-after apartments.
He also enthuses about Belle Vue Mills in Skipton, part of which is home to Craven District Council; Wharfe Bank Mills at Otley, now mixed business and industrial space and Titanic Mill at Linthwaite, which has been turned into a hotel and spa.
In particular though, he points to Dean Clough Mills in Halifax and Salts Mill at Saltaire, where regeneration has turned the old mills into something quite special.
“So why did Dean Clough work?” he says. “I’ll tell you. Ernest Hall and Jonathan Silver bought the complex for comparatively little and they had a vision. It’s a lot to do with real personality in the people who take up the challenge.” After Dean Clough, Jonathan Silver went on, of course, to turn Salts into another success story.
What is also required is money. “The cost of buying an old mill is not actually large,” says Grizzard. “A huge one in Halifax went for £150,000 at auction recently. The real cost is in the restoration and when you’re redeveloping an old mill, you really don’t know what the costs are going to turn out to be.”
That might help to explain why some schemes have stalled and why some developers seem reluctant to take the plunge and start work in the first place.
Hunslet and Victoria Mills in Leeds have planning permission for conversion to apartments but joint developers Caddick Developments and Evans Property Group have yet to set that in motion.
Phil Ward, team leader for conservation at Leeds City Council, says: “There are long standing issues here. The site is relatively isolated from the commercial centre of Leeds and also I don’t think there’s confidence that it’s a viable scheme.”
Temple Mill also has its own challenges. “It wouldn’t suit residential or office conversion. It needs a different use that’s yet to be identified,” says Ward.
“It takes years, if not decades, to save buildings like this and it all depends on the ebb and flow of the economy.
“Also, political will is needed – you need to get everyone facing the same way. If it was easy, it would have been done earlier.”