Mill Buildings At Walton Works

Former cotton wick mill and associated buildings located off Walton Fields Road adjacent to the River Goyt. Late 18th century with later extensions and alterations. The complex comprises multiple interconnected structures of coursed squared stone and red brick with slate, pantile and stone-slate roofs, arranged in an irregular L-plan that extends considerably southwards from the river. The buildings range from two to four storeys with three storeys being predominant.

Building 7 represents one of the earliest elements on the site. A three-storey structure with stone ground floor and brick above, it features a slate roof and comprises 6 bays, though one is obscured by Building 11, presenting a visible 5-window range. The windows are cross casements with small panes at first and second floors, set under brick lintels. The ground floor contains renewed casements and a double taking-in door, while the first floor has a taking-in door to centre right. Internally, the first and second floors display very significant fire-resistant construction employing later cast-iron columns supporting plaster-protected timber beams carrying plated timber skewbacks and brick jack arches with longitudinal tie roods. The timber roof is of queen-post trusses. An original south end fireproof door survives on the second floor.

Building 11, dating to circa 1820-30, is three storeys with attic. It features 4 bays with a combined loading bay and staircase at its junction with Building 7. A 4-window range of small-paned windows occupies the first and second floors with 20th-century windows to the ground floor; stone lintels are employed throughout. Similar small-paned windows appear to the rear and gable end. The interior employs a significant form of 'slow burning construction' comprising massive timber beams with approximately 3-inch thick wide boards laid directly upon them.

Behind Building 7 stands a structure of massive masonry blocks to the ground floor with brick above, four storeys in height with a water tower above. Dating to the early or mid-19th century, its windows feature segmental or round arched heads; the massive construction suggests it was originally an engine house. A 20th-century link connects this to a mid-19th-century building sited along the River Hipper with windows overlooking it, probably extended eastwards later. Alterations to the building to the south appear to date from the interwar period of the 20th century. To the east, a single-storey building in red brick with heavy grey slate roof links to Building 2, which is L-plan with ashlar to the ground floor and brick above. The ground floor dates to the early or mid-19th century while the upper storey bears a datestone of 1920. Further east stands a probably late 18th-century two-storey building of coursed dressed stone to ground floor and brick above.

Building 8, extending southwards from the southern end of Building 7 and predating 1831, is of red brick with pantile roof and three storeys. Built as an extension to Building 7, it stands over the waterway known as the Goyt and possibly replaced a water-wheel house. Building 9, also predating 1831, is of red brick with slate and tile roof, featuring small-paned windows. Its roof comprises 13 king post trusses with pegged purlins, while timber beams are supported by cast-iron columns.

This mill complex is of outstanding interest for the exceptionally significant construction techniques employed in two core buildings and the survival of a large, long-evolved complex. The first and second floors of Building 7 employ the same fire-resistant construction as that first used in Jedediah Strutt's Milford Warehouse of 1792-93 (now demolished), one of the world's earliest factories with fireproof construction. These represent survivals of a proto-fireproofing technique which by 1796 had been improved further through substitution of cast-iron for vulnerable timber beams. This is likely the only surviving example of such construction. Building 11 employs 'slow burning construction', a form which became standard in American textile mills from about 1820 until replacement by steel-framed buildings; only two other such mills in England are known to employ this technique. The complex's significance is heightened by the relationship with Smiths Foundry, situated half a mile downstream, which was a major supplier of cast-iron components to the Strutts and likely influenced the use of such materials here. The two buildings are of outstanding historical and technical significance for their pioneering fireproofing methods, and the entire complex, with its long evolution containing elements of great interest, shares in this overall importance.