Crossley's Mill

Crossley's Mill is a former warehouse dating to the 1830s, built as part of the Akroyd worsted manufacturing complex in the Hebble valley north of Halifax. The building is constructed of coursed dressed sandstone with a slate roof.

The mill is aligned approximately east-west, alongside the north bank of the Hebble Brook. It has two-and-a-half storeys, rising to three storeys on the south side where the ground is lower.

The north elevation contains twelve window bays. The tenth bay from the left features a taking-in door at first floor level. The raised ground floor has taking-in doors in the fifth and tenth bays, and an entrance to the left end approached by external steps. All taking-in doors have been converted to windows. The windows have stone cills and small-paned glazing, while the door has a stone architrave. Three windows between the two taking-in doors at ground floor share a lower, continuous stone cill and a cast iron plate above, possibly the lower flange of an inverted T-beam. The basement floor has recessed stone panels aligned with the windows above.

The south elevation displays a full run of twelve windows at first and second floor level. At ground floor there are two entrance doors to the right, with a third entrance in the ninth bay from the left showing evidence of alteration in its jambs. The ninth and tenth first floor windows have a continuous stone cill and cast iron plate lintel similar to that on the north elevation, as do the eleventh and twelfth windows.

The west end, formerly attached to other now-demolished buildings, has a hipped roof, two upper windows and a ground floor entrance. The east gable end has a central line of taking-in doors, with the upper two containing doors and the lower two blocked. Further blocked windows exist to each side, with one extant window to the right. A covered footbridge leading from Fearnley Mill enters at first floor level.

The interior contains timber floors, cast iron columns and queen-post roof trusses braced with steel framing in places.

James Akroyd and Sons occupied a mill in the Hebble valley from 1815. Several buildings, including Fearnley's Mill (a spinning mill) and Crossley's Mill, were built by Akroyds in the 1830s. The original Bowling Dyke Mill, a spinning mill, was destroyed by fire in 1847 and quickly rebuilt, with a first phase to the east opening in 1849 and a second phase to the west in 1851.

A Rating Valuation map of 1836 shows the outline of a building on the site of Crossley's Mill in a form suggesting it was still under construction. It certainly existed by the time the 1847 Ordnance Survey Five Foot Plan was surveyed, where it appears in some detail though unnamed. Other buildings were attached to its western end until well into the twentieth century.

The Akroyds were engaged in worsted manufacture, and their complex spread over considerable area to the east and north of the Crossley complex at Dean Clough, including the Haley Hill complex and Copley Mill. Akroyds and Crossleys were major industrialists and benefactors of Halifax. Their business suffered decline from the 1890s, and various parts of the site were sold into different ownerships. John Crossley and Sons Ltd bought most of the estate in 1969, when the warehouse acquired its current name and became part of the Dean Clough estate.