Number 13 And Abbey Mills

A mill complex in Kirkstall, Leeds, originally used for corn and oil milling and later for wool processing, now converted to light industrial units. The site dates from the early 19th century but incorporates the remains of earlier mill buildings destroyed by fire in 1799. The buildings show later 19th and 20th century alterations throughout.

The complex is constructed primarily in coursed squared gritstone with grey slate and stone slate roofs. It comprises four linked ranges arranged in a rough L-plan, with one side running parallel to Abbey Road, plus a masonry platform and bridge over the goit, and the remains of a further range parallel to the goit to the south.

The main range facing Abbey Road has an early entrance block, two storeys high with three bays. This features a blocked round arch with quoined jambs on the right side, plain sills and lintels, and two blocked doorways. To the left is Number 13 Abbey Road itself, which has an inserted doorway with overlight and large 20th-century windows, a hipped roof, and a roadside wall with flat coping. The wall has plain stone gate piers with shaped tops.

To the right of the former entrance stands the gable end of a four-storey block with a blocked ground-floor entrance, small rectangular windows and two inserted 20th-century windows. The gabled range extends westwards for approximately ten bays, with part obscured by a corrugated iron lean-to. The small original windows, which have large sills and lintels, have been altered towards the western end with larger inserted openings. The original top-floor openings are set noticeably below the building's eaves line. The rear north-facing side of this range has enlarged second-floor windows and an attached lower range built with some very large stones. On the east wall at first-floor level is a blocked voussoired flat arch and square windows with stone surrounds, with a gable to the right.

At the west end of the site, standing at right angles to the four-storey block and positioned on the masonry platform, is another four-storey range of eleven bays, constructed with burned stones possibly salvaged from the 1799 fire. This range features a part-blocked round archway at its centre on the west side, two tiers of tall six-pane windows, and five small windows set under the eaves on the right. Two first-floor windows are blocked; one stone bears the shallow well-cut date "1814". The south-facing gable has four windows, a circular panel in the gable, gable coping and a short stack. The north end is altered, but the gable contains a tall loading door with flanking square windows. To the north is a three-bay single-storey shed with north lights.

A two-storey range of six windows, positioned parallel to the present yard access and thought possibly to have been a finishing shop, displays herring-bone tooling and tie-stone jambs to paired doors on the right. It has square windows in plain stone surrounds, preserving the original form on the right, though two windows have been knocked into one and lintels have been raised towards the centre and left. An ashlar ridge stack, later raised in brick, stands to the right of centre. Two further two-storey bays with altered openings appear to the right.

Across the yard, running parallel to the mill's tailrace, is a single-storey range thought possibly to have served as the drying house. Its north end has been demolished. Stone and brick ranges probably represent the remains of machine shops, stables and other ancillary buildings.

The remaining significant features include the masonry platform and the tail-race bridge, approximately 30 metres long, with three buttresses supporting two wide segmental arches with rusticated voussoirs. The bridge is topped with rounded coping to a low ashlar parapet wall.

The interior has not been inspected.

The mill is thought to occupy the site of a medieval complex for processing corn. A major fire in 1799 resulted in extensive rebuilding. By the 1820s, Ephraim Elsworth operated a corn and oil mill here. Parts were used for woollen cloth production from the 1820s until 1961, when the site was purchased by Leeds City Council. The ten-bay range with small windows may represent part of the original corn mill, while the tall western range, former drying house and finishing shops relate to the later woollen manufacturing phase.