Greenups Mill

Greenups Mill is a wool textile mill, now commercial premises, built in 1793 for William Greenup (Fitzgerald), with additions and alterations in the second half of the 19th century. It is constructed of coursed stone with a stone slate roof. The building is four storeys high and originally ten bays wide, with additions made to the south, the east front, and projecting wings to the west. These later additions are not of particular interest. The East front features a gable over the central three bays. The ground floor has been much altered; bays five and six have an inserted shouldered carriage arch, the arch itself replaced by a girder, and to its right, a blocked round archway, likely originally part of a pair, alongside a window, a former wide doorway converted into a window, and another window. The first, second, and third floors each have a central loading door with an oculus above the gable, and windows with plain stone surrounds, with the cills lowered to accommodate later nine-pane windows. Louvres are present to the ridge. The rear of the main range has windows mirroring the front elevation and a round-arched doorway flanked by wide lights; above this, a loading door is located to the left. There are shaped gutter brackets. The interior features cast-iron columns, reportedly installed post-1840 (Fitzgerald), supporting large-scantling cross-beams. The upper floors, which were not inspected, are reportedly covered by queen-post timber roof trusses with a later gallery inserted between the queen posts (Fitzgerald). Although a mill has existed on the site since at least 1752, and buildings were added throughout the second half of the 18th century, the current building dates to 1793, a date confirmed by George Greenup (son of William Greenup) in an enquiry of 1834. The mill was water-powered and used for woollen-carding, spinning, and filling. Fitzgerald suggests that William Greenup shared with Benjamin Gott of Bean Ing Mill, Leeds, pioneering efforts to industrialize cloth manufacture, although Gott’s complex (built in 1792) was entirely steam-powered.