Marshall Mills

Marshall Mills

Flax mill, now converted into several industrial units. Built in phases: 1817, 1827, and 1830, with later alterations and additions. Constructed for John Marshall, with ironwork by Matthew Murray's Round Foundry. Red-brown brick in English bond with slate roofs.

The building comprises a U-plan arrangement open on the west side, consisting of three ranges. The north range dates to 1817, the south range to 1827 (heightened in 1830), and the linking east range to 1830, which fronts onto Marshall Street.

North Range

Five storeys with an attic. The Marshall Street gable end features three round-arched first-floor windows flanked on the left by a square-section chimney shaft rising above the eaves band and on the right by a slightly set-back staircase bay. A lunette window sits in the gable. The central entrance is a four-panel door with overlight in a pilastered doorcase. The rear west gable has small paired windows above, with blocked original openings including a central tier of small segmental-arched windows flanked by small round oculi in header bricks and a large lunette window to the gable. The right return features a projecting staircase bay and is approximately 14 bays long, with a central two-bay projection and blocked oculi at the far right. The courtyard facade is similar, with oculi to the left.

South Range

Six storeys with a four-window facade to Marshall Street, set back slightly from the line of the east range. The entrance consists of twentieth-century doors with overlight in a pilastered doorcase, with a gable lunette on a band above. The rear west gable has its three lower storeys obscured by later additions, with narrow windows to the right of centre above and a part-blocked lunette in the gable; a short tower or flue projects above the gable. The left return to Union Place extends for 13 bays, with small windows to bay 2, blocked windows at the far right, and stone coping to the parapet. The courtyard facade features two pilaster buttresses at its centre and left.

East Range

Six storeys infilling the east side. The first-floor elevation contains 11 windows with continuous sill bands.

Interior

The north range contains three rows of cruciform cast-iron columns supporting segmental brick arches, with a wooden roof. The south range contains cylindrical cast-iron columns supporting inverted T-section beams. Both the south and east ranges feature a cast-iron roof structure composed of principal rafters, angle braces, curved collars and king-posts, with the east range roof structure following the same pattern as the south. The cast-iron roof trusses have been described as noteworthy, each composed of three principal castings bolted together, with the strength of the frame derived from the form of the lower chord, representing important experimentation in cast-iron structures during the early nineteenth century.

Historical Context

John Marshall was the son of Jeremiah Marshall, a cloth dealer in Leeds, and married Jane Pollard, daughter of a Halifax manufacturer. Following his father's trade as a linen draper, Marshall used capital left by his father to establish a mill near Adel, later joined there by engineer Matthew Murray. In 1791, Marshall built a new water-powered mill between the Hol Beck and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, taking advantage of the Aire and Calder Navigation and later the completed Leeds and Liverpool link to bring flax from the Baltic and Ireland.

The spun yarn was sold to local weavers and to handloom weavers in Cumberland and Scotland, with linen thread exported to the United States and linen cloth distributed worldwide. Marshall Street was established by the warehouse at the northern end when the business expanded in 1808, with the premises extended along the entire western side by 1843.

Marshall's association with Matthew Murray, who patented a flax-spinning machine in 1790 and built his Round Foundry at the junction of Water Lane and Marshall Street, resulted in the highest standards of building structure, machinery and maintenance available at the time. The mills represented the first successful water and steam-powered flax spinning operation. The north range of 1817 was the end block of a roadside group extending from the warehouse, which originally included a flax-drying house and mechanic's shop, both since demolished. Its structure of cruciform columns has been described as somewhat conservative for its time but possibly reflecting the influence of the structurally untutored Matthew Murray. The range contained a 70 horsepower steam engine, one of the largest of the period. The south range was built ten years later, with upper storeys and a new roof structure added in 1830 alongside the construction of the linking east range.

John Marshall's mills processed one-tenth of the country's total import of flax, and his success inspired the establishment of 59 flax mills in Leeds by 1839, most centred on Water Lane and East Street. He became one of the first millionaires of the Industrial Revolution and served as Member of Parliament for Yorkshire from 1826 to 1830.