Midland Junction Foundry

MIDLAND JUNCTION FOUNDRY, SILVER STREET

Former brass and iron foundry and engineering workshops for the manufacture of textile machinery, now engineering works and storage. Built in 1793 for Joshua Wordsworth and the firm of Taylor Wordsworth and Co., with additions and alterations in 1847 and the late 19th century.

The building comprises two parallel ranges of three storeys linked by a bridging range, forming an overall H-plan with an original cobbled yard between them. Construction is in red brick: 5:1 English bond to the north end of the west range and south end of the east range; random header bond to the south end of the west range. Some stone dressings are present, and the roofs are of corrugated asbestos. Fenestration consists of 6×4-pane cast iron frames and replacements with slightly cambered header-brick arches and thin stone sills.

The west range extends approximately 20 bays, with loading doors at bays 1, 9 and 14. The north end building is a steam-powered factory of 11 bays with structural evidence for its power source. Tall narrow windows mark the blocked internal vertical engine house on both the yard and west sides, along with two arches of the blocked 2-bay boiler house with an inserted doorway. The base of the square brick chimney with stone strengtheners survives at the north-east corner. The rear west wall is set back at bay 6, and the end bay has a projecting stair and privy tower with round and rectangular windows.

The interior features fire-proof construction with segmental brick arches. The engine house contains a recess for the fly-wheel and a plaster cornice to the beam engine housing. Part or all of the bridging range is contemporary with this northern section of the works, containing a wide newel stair at the junction between the two sections, with stone lower treads and wooden upper treads. The archway is a shallow basket arch of header bricks with domestic-scale windows to the first and second floors on the north face, frames replaced.

The south side of the bridging range features a small former office accessed by a 6-panel door, with a blocked opening into the archway. The principal feature is the 2-tier cast iron open-sided walk-way and loading deck linking the two sides of the works. The lower bridge has 5 roll-moulded panels in relief and a moulded rail, ramped down on the left with added railings. The upper level has 9 panels with the left end curved upward. The walkway ends are inserted into blocked openings, suggesting they are not original but were added to the bridging range; they are shown on the circa 1850 Ordnance Survey map. No maker's name was observed in the castings. The south arch and small rooms of the bridging range have been altered in the late 20th century.

The south end of the west range contains 9 windows to the yard with doors at each end; those on the right have timber frames to protect the brickwork from heavy castings being carried across the yard. Ground floor windows are blocked. The interior has late 20th-century re-flooring with steel framework.

The east range comprises 16 bays overall. The south end of 6 bays and 3 storeys has windows lower than those on the opposite range; the south gable has blocked windows and an added central buttress. The ground floor was not inspected; the first floor has timber floor beams and inserted cast iron columns, with queen-post roof trusses having iron boltings and pegged purlins. The east wall is thickened between the windows, and the south corners have square internal buttresses, possibly chimney flues. The north end is 2 storeys with a tall single-storey shed extension to the open yard side, now blocked. The entrance is at bay 4, with blocked ground floor windows.

Joshua Wordsworth built this engineering works in 1793 to make machines for the linen textile industry, following the construction of John Marshall's nearby linen mills. The round privy windows are similar to those at Marshall's Mills of the late 18th century, and the use of stone blocks in the brick coursing also suggests an early date. The thickened walls in the east range's south block suggest an early construction date or the presence of flues within the wall thickness.

By 1820, Wordsworth had joined with John Taylor. During the 1860s the works expanded to incorporate the premises of Springfield flax mill, since demolished. The foundry was built at the south end of Silver Street, shown on the circa 1847 Ordnance Survey map as a row of 17 back-to-back houses on the west side and a single-depth terrace on the east, backing onto the large reservoirs built for Marshall's Mills. The later railway viaduct was built over the reservoirs and the northern end of Silver Street. The foundry continued to produce textile machinery throughout the 19th century, latterly as part of the important Keighley firm of Prince-Smith.

Together with the Round Foundry of Fenton, Murray and Wood, the Midland Junction Foundry represents the earliest phase of specialist machine and tool manufacture, part of the major textile and engineering industry of Leeds.