Thorn Emi Works

SD53SW 941-1/1/166

PRESTON KENT STREET (West side) Thorn EMI Works

II

Formerly known as: Hanover Street Mills KENT STREET. Cotton spinning mill, now electric lamp factory. c.1825, subsequently enlarged, altered and reduced. Red brick in English garden wall bond, with sandstone dressings, roofs mostly slate but some now with corrugated sheet. Two blocks on north-south axis, the north 3-storeys and 14 windows, the south 4 storeys and 11 windows, linked at the corners and with a single-storey block on the east side of the north block. All the windows are vertical-rectangular with raised sills and wedge lintels, those of the north range and its single-storey front block larger, all with altered glazing (and the right-hand end windows and top corner of the north block rebuilt in C20 brick). The south end wall of the south block has 3 gables; the rear has a square turret; the rear of the north block has a modern addition.

INTERIOR: the partition wall between the storeyed north block and its side range is carried on a very unusual colonnade of 13 cast-iron fluted Doric columns; otherwise the structure consists of 4 rows of simple cast-iron columns with trumpet-shaped caps carrying timber beams, but the roof has been reconstructed after fire damage, and now has a double row of columns in the centre (and at the north end charred fishbone-strut trusses); staircase at south-west corner mounting round flue of former chimney stack, and with original 63-pane stair window. The south block has former open-arcading at ground floor of west side; upper floors now partitioned, but attic has double row of slender cast-iron columns with linking iron saddles carrying timber beams and king-post roof trusses.

First built by Francis Sleddon, bankrupt 1844, bought by Birley Brothers, damaged by fire 1873.

Listing NGR: SD5399630298