Former Canal Flour Mills

The former Canal Flour Mills, dating to 1896 and designed by William Waddington, are now used as warehouses and are partly unoccupied. Constructed of red brick, with some sections painted, the building has a four-span slate roof. It occupies an irregular plan within a square, positioned with its main axis parallel to Egerton Street, and faces the Bridgewater Canal with an integral canal basin entered through a shipping hole. The design is utilitarian but incorporates Italianate features.

The building rises four storeys over a basement. The Egerton Street facade has pilastered bays of varying widths. The first five bays feature paired windows, while the sixth bay has three windows. The windows are mostly segmental-headed, except for a single round-headed opening from ground to first floor in the first bay, and the square-headed, shorter windows on the top floor. Most basement openings and ground-floor windows are blocked. The south return wall has a wide three-bay gable with a central flat section, followed by a two-bay gable and two single-bay gables. The ground floor of this return has been significantly altered, but the upper floors retain a similar window arrangement with the exception of the top floor, which has stepped round-headed windows.

At the north end is a large shipping hole and a square sprinkler tower with narrow, two-bay sides, which have round-headed lancets and corbel tables. A machicolated parapet surrounds the water tank at the top of the tower, and a square chimney in a similar style is located in the northeast corner.

The interior, as reported in a 1989 survey, retains original loading and unloading facilities for canal boats. It features timber floors supported by steel beams and cast-iron columns, and a disused pump in the basement relates to an artesian well. The building is notable as a complete example of a flour mill relating to canal transport.