Marshall'S Mill

Marshall's Mill

A textile warehouse dating from 1843, probably designed by local architect Richard Horsfall, constructed of coursed rubble sandstone under a stone slate roof.

The building is aligned approximately north-south with its front elevation facing north. It comprises four storeys plus an attic storey, with the lower two storeys cut into the rising ground and truncated to the rear. The structure is eight bays long and four bays wide, with the west side longer than the east by a single bay. A later single-storey addition to the rear is built in brick with corrugated iron roofs.

The north elevation displays four windows to the first, second and third floors, all with concrete lintels and blocked. The ground floor contains three sash windows of similar size with eight lights to the upper part. To the left stands a doorway with squared ashlar jambs, a capital and moulded lintel, with an original timber double door. The gable end features a Venetian window with original glazing at attic floor level. Ashlar quoins mark each corner, topped by moulded stone kneelers.

The east elevation includes a doorway at second floor level opening onto the sloping bank alongside, with three windows above towards the rear. Centrally there is a blocked arched passageway running through the centre of the building, rising through the ground and first floors. This passage is partly buried on the east side but fully revealed on the west side, though still blocked. Seven windows at second and third floor level appear on the west side, most with original glazing. The northernmost bay has four floors of blocked windows with a space occupied by an internal chimney stack. Blocked windows flank either side of the passageway.

The rear elevation has matching quoins and kneelers to the front, but is only two storeys high with two windows and a central loading door at attic height; the remainder is obscured by the later extension.

Internally, floors are connected by an enclosed stair tower in the north-west corner. The ground floor contains a chimney breast and fireplace on the west wall, with shutters to the front windows. A brick wall seals off access to the passageway, and a partition wall on the west side creates a narrow room. Original windows survive on the front wall of the first floor, with later partitions forming an office room in the north-east corner. A door in the rear wall leads to the blocked passageway; the blocking is in breezeblock and brick. A window with a grill on the rear wall indicates there was previously space to the south of the passage, now inaccessible. The second floor contains a central row of cast iron columns and ladder access to the floor above, with further partitions on the east side. The third floor also has cast iron columns and partitions, accessed from the rear extension where the ground surface reaches this level. Trap doors near the rear lead to the floor below and attic above. The attic floor, reached by fixed ladder, has king-post trusses with principal rafters set into distinctive slender iron castings bolted to the floor. Several roof lights have been inserted.

A building on this site first appears on the 1849 Ordnance Survey map. An 1844 rating assessment for John Rayner of Cross Hill House itemises a warehouse for the first time, along with domestic buildings, cottages and a worsted mill. Sales particulars of the same year describe the warehouse as fronting onto the Turnpike Road, confirming its present location. The warehouse was in multiple occupancy by tenants, rated in three parts.

Following Rayner's ownership, the estate was purchased by Thomas Holmes, owner of the Dean Clough Dyeworks, and his trustees retained the warehouse until the twentieth century. Initially used as part of the Dyeworks operation, by 1866 a beershop occupied the ground floor, later extending into upper floors with a refreshment room and practise room. The 1890 Ordnance Survey plan identifies the premises as The Engine Inn B.H. (beer house), apparently surviving until after the First World War. The building was sold to J Marshall & Sons, slaters and plasterers, in 1948, though occupied in part by the Halifax Sack Works. It eventually passed into the Dean Clough estate in 1990 and is presently unused.