Shaw Lodge Mill Engine House And Boiler House

Shaw Lodge Mill Engine House and Boiler House

The Engine House, built in 1855 with a later addition in 1895, is constructed in coursed dressed gritstone with heavy rusticated quoins and a slate roof. The main building features tall arched double doors at the south gable end, with two blocked windows above fitted with ashlar dressings and projecting lintels. A projecting string course runs at first floor level. The gable end is topped with a triangular pediment with dentilation and a central cartouche bearing the date 1855. To the left, a lean-to addition has a large entrance at its south gable end and dentilation to the eaves.

The engine house interior is now empty but retains metal stairs to the left leading to a first floor platform with a trap door and iron hooks suspended from overhead beams for hauling equipment. The adjoining shed is fully tiled with maroon tiling below and white above. The surviving joinery and brick infill show that the roof was originally double pitched. A square hole in the wall adjoining the engine house marks where a wheel stood against the tiles. A trapdoor in the floor gives access to a tunnel carrying power cables to other parts of the mill complex, including the chimney to the north on Boys Lane.

The Boiler House, also built in 1855 with a later addition in 1942, is similarly constructed in coursed dressed gritstone but has a corrugated iron roof. It features a double pitched roof, with clerestory windows in the earlier section. The south front contains a large entrance to the right in the later section, with corrugated iron in the upper gable end and a small blocked window. The earlier section to the left has a small door to the right and a blocked Venetian window in the upper gable. A curved corner to the west is punctuated by widely spaced blocked windows along the west side. The rear elevation has a blocked Venetian window to the right (in the earlier section) and a large entrance to the left.

The 1855 section of the boiler house interior retains original iron roof trusses, with a pierced iron beam supported on iron columns that opens to the later part.

Historical Context

John Holdsworth & Company was founded in 1822 by John Holdsworth, whose family were already woollen textile manufacturers and merchants in Shibden and Halifax. The firm specialised in worsted cloth produced by hand loom weavers. Responding to developments in mechanised spinning, John Holdsworth established his first spinning mill in 1822. By 1825 he was purchasing land at Shaw Lodge, with his first mill on the site dated to 1830—the extant No 1 Mill still present on the site.

Further mechanisation of weaving led to the construction of the first power loom weaving shed at Shaw Lodge in 1844, accompanied around the same time by additional spinning mills and an extension to the weaving shed in 1852. The No 2 Mill, dated between 1831 and 1839, stood to the south of the extant buildings at right angles to them, extending eastwards to Hebble Brook. The building named No 3 Mill and dated 1850 on a 1925 plan may originally have been built as a warehouse, though it was certainly in existence by 1855, standing to the north of and adjoining No 1 Mill.

By 1839 the mills were steam powered, with separate engines for each of the two mills. In 1855 a separate engine house, boiler house and chimney were built on the eastern side of the site, with underground power connections to the mills. By this time, the firm had invested in Jacquard looms and in 1851 won a medal at the Great Exhibition for their worsted cloths. Family branches operated in Bradford and London, and John Holdsworth occupied a house called Shaw Lodge close to the western side of the site, now demolished.

Continued prosperity resulted in the construction of a 7-storey warehouse to the north of No 3 Mill in 1862, a separate office block with adjoining stable in 1865, a workshop and shed at the north end of the site in 1876, and a tower and timekeepers office at the northern end of the weaving sheds also in 1876.

Since then, alterations have included the loss of No 2 Mill and the southern end of No 1 Mill, reconstruction of the stables, extensions to the engine house and boiler house, and reroofing of most of the weaving sheds and mills. The firm continued to operate until 2006, having survived the decline of most woollen manufacturing in the country by specialising in the production of moquette for the bus and coach trade. The site was due to be redeveloped.

The engine house and boiler house at Shaw Lodge represent a comparatively early development in the history of the steam-powered textile industry. They form an essential component of an important and largely intact complex containing examples of the full range of buildings associated with a nineteenth century worsted mill, including mills, weaving sheds and offices. The completeness of the site, with these buildings as central components, renders it of high importance in the history of this nationally significant industry.