Parkwood Mill

Parkwood Mill

Parkwood Mill is an integrated Room and Power woollen mill of the mid to late 19th century, built for the firm of John Broadbent and Sons and their tenants. The buildings are constructed from coursed local gritstone with stone and slate roofs, rendered in a plain style with minimal embellishment beyond sill bands and dentilled eaves. The interior is characterised by cast iron columns supporting massive timber cross beams, with column flat faces designed for power transmission systems. Mill number 2, at the north end beside the internal engine house, features a fire-proof interior.

The main group comprises eight numbered buildings. Mill 1, the earliest surviving structure, was built in the early 1850s on the site of John Broadbent's first mill, positioned parallel to and on the west side of Stoney Lane. It rises to five storeys across 15 bays with a wide pitched roof and a rear stair tower at the centre. The building was reroofed in the 1950s when the interior was rebuilt with concrete pillars and floors separated from the walls.

Mill 2, probably built in 1864 during rapid expansion under Butterworth Broadbent's ownership, stands six storeys high across 16 bays with an M-shaped roof. A tall water tower with a pyramidal roof marks the centre of its east side. The internal end engine house retains massive stone block walling and castings that supported the gearing of the power transmission system. When a new engine house was added to the north end of the west side in the early 20th century, this original engine house was converted to a rope race.

The former boiler house adjoins the north end, opening from the east side mill yard. The early 20th-century engine house at the north end of mill 2 displays ornate moulded gable coping and round-arched windows, with its interior retaining original white, blue and brown glazed brick wall linings and a bricked east end opening for the rope race into the former end engine house.

To the north stand a former coal store, economiser and the surviving chimney of 1877. This chimney comprises a tall square stone plinth with a corbelled cornice and a brick chimney stack with moulded crown mounted on top. It is reported to have been designed as a viewing platform and chimney on an Indian model by John Edward Broadbent, who had served in the Indian army—a form known in Manchester cotton mills of the mid 19th century.

Mill 3, built about 1866, rises six storeys as an extension of mill 2, with three parallel roofs and a projecting privy and stair tower with taking-in doors on the centre of its south side. Mill 4, built about 1868 on the west side of mill 2, is three storeys tall but was modified in the mid 20th century with few original features remaining. Mill 5, built about 1870, comprises three storeys across 12 bays with three parallel hipped roofs.

Mill 6, completed by 1882 and positioned parallel to and on the east side of Stoney Lane, rises four storeys with 18 bays overall, a rear stair and privy tower, and a glazed slate roof. Mill 7 was built together with mill 6 as its southern section. Mill 8, the offices and entrance range, is situated south of mill 1 fronting the bend of Stoney Lane. The building to the right of its arch served as an office and dyehouse and may incorporate an early structure.

A small mill reservoir once occupied the north-east corner of the site, shown on the 1893 Ordnance Survey map as extending on the north side of the road near the Methodist Chapel.

By 1872, the Mill Rent Book recorded 12 named concerns operating at the site; by 1881 there were 14 tenants. By 1887, tenants included spinners, manufacturers and one dry finisher. In November that year, the Broadbents acquired the finisher's company, which became Longwood Finishing Company Ltd, with shares remaining in Broadbent family hands until 1910. The mill represents a complete and unique example of the development of a large Room and Power business, which returned to single company ownership during World War I. Lockwood Mills closed in 2001.

The mill stands in the centre of the Dodlee Longwood Edge conservation area, designated in 1981. Associated buildings within the wider setting include the Methodist chapel, the stone-built valley-bottom village, mill owners' houses and cottages on the hillside.