Waterloo Mill And Attached Engine House

This is a worsted mill, now occupied by three textile-related businesses and a car-repair workshop. Construction began between 1867 and 1877 for Charles Hastings and Co, worsted spinners, and the site was completed by 1884 as a Room and Power mill. Alterations were carried out in 1916, including rebuilding of the engine house, for Taylor Brothers, tenants of the Waterloo Room and Power Company.

The main facade facing Howden Road is built of coursed squared hammer-dressed gritstone, some rock-faced, with gritstone ashlar dressings. The side walls are of thinner coursed local gritstone. Roofs are of grey slate and glazed sections, and there are cast and wrought iron gates.

Site Layout and Entrance

The mill complex comprises four building groups. The main entrance is from the north, on Howden Road. The gates, gate piers and flanking walls survive. Behind the walling on the right stands a square plinth and octagonal chimney. The monolithic gate piers are approximately 1.5 metres high, square on plan with semi-circular arched heads. The cast and wrought iron two-leaf gates have a three-panelled plated lower section surmounted by rails with fleur-de-lis finials. Flanking walls of rock-faced gritstone are laid to diminishing courses with rounded coping, curved in from the pavement line on plan. The left wall is approximately 2 metres long, abutting the north mill office range, and the right walling is approximately 5 metres long, ramped up to meet the north wall of the warehouse range of the west mill group. The chimney plinth has a chamfered base and bracketed ashlar cornice. The tapering stack is octagonal; most survives but it lacks the headpiece.

Spinning Mill and Engine Houses

The mill yard is dominated by the tall three-bay engine house of 1916, projecting forward from the north-west corner of the circa 1870 four-storey, 18 by 5 bay spinning mill, which has parallel hipped roofs. The single-storey boiler-house is attached to the west gable.

The original spinning mill has tall narrow six-pane windows to the lower three floors and square windows to the top floor throughout, all with plain lintels and a continuous sill band. There is a bracketed eaves cornice and hoist rings above the windows. On the north facade the original three-window engine house bay breaks forward on the right and has a hipped roof at right angles to the main roof. The original tall round-arched window is obscured by the 1916 engine house but the head is visible on the upper floor interior. The probably original entrance is to the left of the engine house bay and is obscured by the north weaving shed, as are the blocked ground floor windows.

The rear (south) elevation overlooks the Leeds-Liverpool Canal and the ground floor is below water level. The tall narrow doorway at the left end, now reduced, opened into a flight of stone steps up to the beam engine house—the lower treads of the flight have been demolished. Windows to the right of this doorway light the original stairs to all floors of the mill. To the right is a fire escape against loading doors or modified windows, and a projecting hipped-roofed toilet bay with paired narrow ventilated windows at the far right.

On the left return (east facade) there is a central tier of loading doors in segmental-arched openings with original boarded double doors over heavy frames, and a gabled housing for the hoist mechanism above. On the right return (west facade) the central narrow round-arched window lit the original beam-engine house. The top storey has a row of six windows, the central two having windows inserted below sill level, probably to light the upper part of the inserted 1916 rope race.

Interior of Spinning Mill and Original Engine House

The original engine house, designed for a double beam engine, is divided from the working floors of the spinning mill by a thick stone wall, partly built of massive ashlar blocks. Similar blocks make up a parallel wall within the engine house and are part of the original engine bed. This wall was adapted to divide the rope race from the body of the mill in 1916. Steps up to a maintenance platform for the rope race remain, with blocked access on two levels. Original stone stairs of two straight flights around a lift shaft to each floor are built across the window line at the south end of the original engine house bay.

On each main working floor a row of 14 cast-iron columns with quatrefoil collars, most encased but visible (with original paintwork) at top floor level, is aligned slightly south of the centre line. These support shallow sockets for the massive timber cross beams which are built into internal buttresses on the outer walls and carry wooden flooring. The cross beams retain hangers and bolting marks from the line shafting.

The roof structure comprises five king-post trusses to each ridge line. The ridge-glazed roof is underceiled with timber boards which show evidence of a fire at the west end. The hoist housing structure and floor hatches survive at the east end. A ground floor partitioned room contains fly wheels linked to the 1916 rope race, and the wall boxes, shafting and gearing of the power transfer system can be seen on each floor of the main mill. A brick protective structure on the top floor of the original engine house bay probably covered part of the power transmission system and is lit by the inserted west windows.

Boiler House

The low single-storey boiler house range is built against the spinning mill west wall. The roofing slates have been replaced with artificial tiles.

1916 Engine House

The flat-roofed, three-window engine house of 1916 projects on the left. The north facade faces the mill yard and has strong architectural detailing which includes a low basement storey of rusticated masonry with access to the engine bed on the left and a central window with massive rusticated voussoirs. Above these is a deep ashlar band and a tall 10 by 4 pane margin-light window, also with massive voussoirs, keystone and projecting sill on stone brackets. An entrance to the engine platform is above the ashlar band on the right return.

The interior retains original wood panelling, plasterwork and electrical fittings. The 1905 Scott and Hodgson inverted vertical cross compound engine installed in 1917, with the rope race built through the lower part of the original beam-engine house window and into the main spinning mill, together with cast-iron access steps and landings, all survive. The mill engine was originally built for J and W Hamer of Union Mill, Guide Bridge, Manchester to drive cotton spinning machinery. It was bought by the Waterloo Room and Power Company after a fire at Union Mill and transported by canal to Silsden in 1917. Taylor Brothers were then the main tenants of the mill. According to official Scott and Hodgson records, it was built in 1905, with cylinders 17 inches and 35 inches, stroke 48 inches, 160 PSI, 75 RPM, horsepower 700, Corliss valves on high-pressure cylinder and piston valve on low-pressure cylinder, flywheel 18 feet diameter with 18 cotton ropes, and Lumb governor. It last ran in 1977 and is the sole survivor of its type; the rope race is also very rare.

North Weaving Shed and Office Range

On the north side of the spinning mill is a single-storey, seven-bay weaving shed with north-light roofs, and a taller single-storey, 10-bay office/finishing shop range with ridged roof, parallel to Howden Road. This slightly post-dates the spinning mill and the pair of semi-detached mill houses at the east end.

The main (north) facade has a board door with overlight in a keyed round arch at the far right and tall four-pane sash windows, sill band and stone gutter brackets. A similar entrance into the mill yard on the right return has a parapet and rainwater pipes from the north-light roofs of the shed. The shed roof has clay ridge tiles and three tall conical ventilators, one reduced.

The interior has seven rows of four cylindrical cast-iron columns with plain rolled mouldings supporting pierced girders which in turn carry the guttering between the timber framework of the north-light windows. Power was brought into the shed through the north wall of the spinning mill. The interior of the office/finishing shop frontage was not inspected.

Mill Houses

The pair of mill houses, numbers 2 and 4 Howden Road, are reported to have been built for the manager of Waterloo Mills and the chief engineer. They are a mirrored pair, two rooms deep, with the doors and window frames replaced. Four stone steps lead up to segmental paired keyed entrance arches. There are ashlar bay windows to the ground floor and four upper floor windows, stone gutter brackets and end stacks. The gable ends have narrow stair windows and the front gardens retain ashlar footings for railings, a short length of which survives to the left, with a gate pier and gate, all in the same style as the main mill entrance: cast-iron panels and wrought iron rails with fleur-de-lis finials.

Western Mill Group

The western half of the site is occupied by a mill group of circa 1870 which consists of a nine-bay single-storey combing/weaving shed with north-light roof; a warehouse/wool sorting range of two storeys over cellar and 16 by 5 bays on the north side, parallel to Howden Road; and a two-storey, 10 by 2 bay warehouse/finishing range facing an entrance yard from Hainsworth Road on the west side.

The north facade (to Howden Road) has entrance bay three, taller ground floor windows, continuous sill bands to ground and first floors, and stone gutter brackets. At pavement level a curved cast-iron grating runs the full length of the building, ventilating a cellar (not inspected). The south face is linked to the north-light shed. The left return is partly obscured by the chimney and has a low corner tower with a round-arched window on the left, and another in the gable. The right return has four windows to each floor, a tall round-arched window in the gable, inserted loading doors on the right, gable copings and turned-back kneelers, and a later 20th-century attached chimney.

The narrower two-storey range facing Hainsworth Road has two tiers of windows but lacks the continuous sill band. There is a possibly original entrance on the left (now onto stairs to upper storey), and an inserted entrance to the right.

The south side of the two-storey west range is clearly of one build with the single-storey shed. The plain south wall has a tall two-phase single bay building with single-pitch roof built against the eastern end, known as the engineering workshop and supporting the line shafting from the engine house, part of which survives in the walling between the building and the west wall of the boiler house range.

Interior of Western Group

The wide north range probably had a solid wall separating it from the shed, demolished when a steel framework was inserted into the shed to support modern textile machinery. The original shed structure comprises eight rows of plain cylindrical cast-iron columns to which pierced girders are bolted and which support the gutters and framework of the north-light windows. In the wide northern warehouse range four plain cast-iron columns with roll mouldings and wings together with probably later additional timber posts support cross beams. Plain cast-iron columns support the open ground floor of the narrower west range. Timber flooring is present throughout.