Bent Ley Mill

Bent Ley Mill is a silk-throwing mill, built in 1840 for Charles Brook, comprising a warehouse and office block, an attached shed, an engine house, a boiler house, and a separate chimney. The building is constructed of coursed gritstone and ashlar, with a brick-vaulted front range resting on cast-iron beams with parallel-sided flanges. The warehouse-office block is two storeys high and seven bays wide, with three central bays projecting forward under a pediment incorporating a central clock face. A late 20th-century alteration is visible on the right return, where an upper-floor taking-in door has a plain stone surround.

The interior of the front office and warehouse range features a brick-vaulted ground floor, a central staircase, and a stone fireplace in the southeastern room. Original wide arched openings provide access from the office range to the rear shed, and a narrow doorway leads into the shed from the central bay. The first floor of the southeast corner office includes a moulded ceiling cornice, a six-panel door, architraves to windows with panelled shutters, and a fireplace with a plain stone surround and moulded shelf.

The rear shed consists of six by ten bays. It contains cast iron columns with moulded caps and slots for beams, along with arched open-work trusses supporting a north-light roof. The outside half-width bays have simpler trusses of tie, strut, and principal form. I-section beams run the length of the shed and carry rainwater gutters; inverted T-section beams with inverted fish-bellied profiles previously supported line shafting and have drilled bracket fixings. The southeastern wall has five doorways, possibly originally for privies, and later partially obscured by additions. An ashlar block in the northeastern back wall marks the position of the power transmission shaft from the surviving narrow beam-engine house. Adjacent to the engine house is the boiler house, with a freestanding, octagonal-section tapering chimney to the southeast, currently lacking its cap and featuring iron banding.

Charles Brook was from a family of Meltham cotton mill builders, and he developed the silk business in the 1830s. The mill was built in 1840, recorded as 'Brook and Nephews, silk throwsters, Bentlee Mills'.