Hunslet Mill

Hunslet Mill

Flax mill, built in 1838 and circa 1842. Probably designed by William Fairbairn for John Wilkinson, with later alterations by John Clark. The building is constructed of red brick with stone details, featuring a slate single and double-gable roof, brick parapet, and stone coping. The plan is L-shaped.

The east range is a 7-storey mill comprising 25 bays on the river edge and 3 bays facing Goodman Street, with a 5-sided stair tower to the rear. It has regular fenestration, stone string courses and cornice, and 2 brick pilaster strips at the corners. The 6 bays to the right display a regular pattern of round tie plates on the upper storeys.

The south range fronts Goodman Street and contains offices and warehouse accommodation. It was originally 2 storeys but was raised to 3 storeys. The facade comprises 10 bays to the left and 12 bays to the right of a slightly projecting 3-bay entrance block. The entrance block retains the remains of a wooden gate in a carriage entrance flanked by pedestrian doorways. The facade features banded rusticated masonry with voussoirs, a central part-blocked 3-light window flanked by single lights all within architraves with cornices over, regular fenestration with slightly cambered rubbed brick arches, and 2 pilaster strips to the left and right of the entrance. The rear features regular fenestration and a 5-sided projecting stair tower to the left.

The interior offices contain remains of fine Greek and Egyptian-style plasterwork to the ceilings and shutters to the windows. The east range frame comprises 3 longitudinal rows of cylindrical cast-iron columns supporting inverted T-section elliptical and parabolic beams developed by Eaton Hodgkinson in the 1820s. These beams carry brick fire-proof arches and stone flag floors. The south block front has 2 rows of cast-iron columns of similar construction.

John Wilkinson (1799–1856) rented the Trafalgar Mill on Meadow Lane for flax spinning in 1830 and purchased a field on the bank of the River Aire in 1840 from George Goodman, with building commencing immediately thereafter. William Fairbairn, the leading engineer and designer of mill buildings in the first half of the 19th century, was responsible for this building as well as Armley Mills from 1805 and Saltaire Mill, built in 1850. In 1842 John Clark was employed as architect, probably for the refronting of the Goodman Street facade when the range was raised from 2 to 3 storeys.

By 1847 Wilkinson employed 1,500 female flax reelers at the mill, making it the largest single-build mill in Leeds at that time. After several fires in the 1860s, Hunslet Mill was offered for sale in 1869. It represents the last and individually largest of the great flax-spinning mills built in Leeds throughout the 1820s and 1830s, the first having been established by John Marshall at Marshall Mills. The west range was demolished in 1986. The building was in a very derelict condition at the time of survey.