Swan Meadow works western mill number 3, Eckersley Mills

Swan Meadow Works Western Mill Number 3, Eckersley Mills

A cotton spinning mill forming part of an integrated complex, built in 1900 by the architects AH Stott and Sons for ffarington Eckersley and Co. The building comprises a spinning block with attached boiler house, dynamo house, chimney and engine house, and has undergone later alterations.

The mill is constructed in common brick to the spinning block and red brick to the engine house and chimney, with buff sandstone dressings, slate roofs, timber windows, cast-iron columns, steel beams and concrete floors.

The building is arranged with a spinning block aligned east-west, with an engine house, boiler house and tall chimney to the rear. An entrance and water tower stand to the front, with a latrine turret to the east. The structure is four storeys high and measures 33 by 11 bays. It is designed in Italianate style, built in brick laid in English Garden Wall bond with panelled corner pilasters, ground-floor and third-floor sill bands, and a coped parapet.

The north-facing front elevation is arranged asymmetrically with long spinning rooms to the left, a central entrance and water tower with an attached later service turret, and short preparation rooms to the right (with 24, 1 and 8 windows respectively). The square tower rises two stages above a dentilled cornice at the mill parapet, and is detailed with panelled pilasters, moulded string courses, balustraded parapet and a lead-clad pyramidal roof. The first stage features stone bands with a small three-light mullioned window between them. The second stage has a larger five-light window with swept stone pediment dated 1900, repeated on both the front and side returns. The lower levels of the tower are obscured to the front and east by a later service turret raised on ground-floor steelwork. Below this stands a pedimented entrance doorway. The west face of the tower has sill and lintel bands to each floor. The main ranges to left and right are regularly fenestrated with large windows on all floors, fitted with six-pane joinery and segmental heads, with keystones to the third floor. The ground floor has inserted doorways at bays 4 and 5, 12, and 16 and 17. Bay 29 is blind and retains a blocked basement opening and first-floor loading door with an iron architrave, truncated teagle and timber doors. The north-west corner displays coupled pilasters to the front and west return.

The west wall has similar detailing and a central turret marking where the beaming block was formerly attached, now with exposed doorways from that block. Many ground and southern windows are blocked. To the right, the chimney is attached by a curved wall and features a prominent blue-engineering-brick plinth, a square base with moulded stone cap, and a tapering octagonal brick shaft rising to approximately 25 metres. Attached at the right is a three-bay side wall of the boiler house, with a stone sill band; this section is currently roofless and windowless.

The south wall is obscured for seven bays at the left by the single-storey boiler house, which is gabled with a roof lantern now missing its glazing. To the right stands the engine house, rising almost to the height of the main range and positioned opposite the entrance tower. It features stone bands and string courses, and a full-height Venetian-style round-headed window opening with pilastered surround and moulded stone head with large keystone, and a pediment incorporated in the parapet above. To the left a small return abuts the boiler house, and to the right a two-storey extension with similar detailing has its opening blocked. The main range to the right matches the detailing of the front and is partly obscured by a late 20th-century loading dock and corrugated lift shafts.

The east end has similar detailing to the front and rear elevations, with a central turret of three bays featuring stacked lancet windows, single to the outside and paired in the centre. The turret has two-window side returns.

The interior contains cast-iron columns supporting steel beams which form the soffit of concrete beams above, spanned by concrete slabs, some of which are divided by timber joists to a timber final floor finish. Some columns and beam soffits retain seatings for fixing power-transmission equipment. Several power transfer boxes survive within the walls, and at least two bearings survive with in-situ line shafting attached. Some fire suppression pipework survives, and original timber doors to the engine house remain. The engine house contains a spectacular full-height space with tiled surfaces from floor to ceiling in bands of white and green, with chequered and patterned tiles, moulded cornice and dark brown dado to the ground floor. Moulded stone lintel-cornice and imposts survive to the windows, with a further dentilled cornice above. The north wall features a tall arched drive opening flanked by shorter arches, with pilasters and moulded stone arches. Brick engine beds also survive.

The mill forms the south-eastern component of an important group of cotton mills and associated structures on the site, which together constitute a striking feature forming a substantial part of the Wigan Pier Conservation Area.