Sharrow Mills

A snuff mill complex of exceptional industrial significance, dating from around 1737 with substantial additions and modifications throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. The buildings are constructed in coursed squared stone and brick, partly rendered and colourwashed, with ashlar dressings and roofs of gabled and hipped stone slate and Welsh slate. The complex comprises the main mill, tail water goit, manager's house, counting house, warehouse, and associated structures.

The Mill

The original mill of 1737 dominates the complex with a steep pitched Welsh slate roof, coped gable, and stack. Its west front is fenestrated with three 3-light glazing bar casements and, below, two similar 2-light casements flanked to the left by a single casement and to the right by a much larger 3-light casement.

Manager's House

The manager's house, dating to the late 18th century, stands to the south with a hipped stone slate roof and modillion wooden eaves. It is two storeys high with a 2-window range of 12-pane sashes set within brick flat arches. A pedimented wooden doorcase contains a fielded 6-panel door with a blank fanlight. The left return features two 12-pane sashes on each floor. The rear elevation includes a round-headed stair window and a 6-panel door.

Associated Ranges

To the right of the manager's house is a projecting stone range containing the boardroom, dating to the mid-18th century, with stone slate roof and single brick gable stack. Two storeys plus garrets, it is fenestrated with two 3-light glazing bar casements on each floor and a smaller similar window to the garret above. A lower link range with catslide roof and single storey connects to a 2-storey block with Welsh slate roof and two brick gable stacks.

Counting House and Warehouse

An early 19th-century counting house of brick with stone slate roof contains a single rear wall stack. It is two storeys with a 2-window range comprising canted 2-storey bay windows. To the left are 12-pane sashes with brick flat arches and a central 6-panel door below. The right return features 4-light glazing bar casements on each floor.

A rendered warehouse of early 19th-century date adjoins, with hipped stone slate roof, single gable, and two side wall brick stacks. Three storeys with a 3-window range, its fenestration includes some 20th-century replacements. The rear incorporates a brick addition of around 1880 with five segment-headed openings, a hoist tower, and an 18th-century wing with large brick gable stack serving the drying room furnace.

Interior and Machinery

The interior houses an outstanding collection of mid-19th-century machinery including an overshot iron water wheel of approximately 6 metres diameter. Below this wheel runs a tail water goit culverted under the River Porter for approximately 30 metres. An 18th-century cross-armed spur wheel on the main shaft drives eight pestle and mortar snuff mills on each of the upper floors. The mills are mounted on an octagonal wooden stand with framework carrying cast-iron cogs; each cog turns a weighted cast-iron pestle through a slotted crank and can be swung to disengage the drive. Subsidiary machinery of around 1880 includes a hoist and rotating drum sieving and mixing machines on the upper floors, with a tobacco cutter in the basement.

The roof structure features a strutted king post roof with double purlins. Ground and first-floor packing rooms retain mid-19th-century built-in scales and wooden posts spanning beams. A drying room with cast-iron furnace occupies the rear.

Sharrow Snuff Mills represents an exceptionally important water-powered industrial complex. Its early 18th-century machinery survives complete and in operational use, and the site is unique in this respect.