Shrewsbury Flaxmill Maltings: Spinning Mill

Spinning Mill, built 1796-1800 by Charles Bage as part of a flax mill owned and operated by Marshall, Benyon and Bage. The complex was constructed in two major phases: 1796-7 and between 1809 and 1812, with later additions and alterations. The building was converted to a maltings in 1897-8 and closed in 1987. It was undergoing repairs in 2015.

The mill is built with iron-framed construction using red "great" bricks measuring approximately 100mm x 110mm x 240mm, under a Welsh slate roof with a timber-clad tower at the north end. The southernmost engine house is constructed of standard bricks. The structure is rectangular in plan, aligned north to south, and forms part of a group of attached buildings developed sequentially, comprising the Spinning Mill, Cross Building, Flax Warehouse, and later linked by a late-19th-century maltings Kiln. The Spinning Mill is the earliest building in this sequence.

The exterior comprises five storeys and eighteen bays, including the south engine house of 1797. The walls are built with external and internal setbacks, a functional rather than aesthetic feature, progressively reducing in thickness towards the upper storeys. A series of transverse roof gables, one to each bay, creates a distinctive sawtooth profile on the west and east elevations. At the north end, the roof is surmounted by a square, three-storey wooden-clad hoist tower of 1897 topped with ornamental cast iron supplied by MacFarlanes of Glasgow. The original pattern of unusually large windows to each of the sixteen bays on the east and west elevations remains evident, though most were bricked in during the 1890s maltings conversion and have been replaced by timber windows to every third bay with internal shutters. The west roadside frontage carries painted lettering reading "Albrew Maltsters Limited Shropshire Maltings" and displays a different pattern of blockings and openings from the opposite elevation, with a large door at central bay ten and a smaller door at bay three from the north. A late-19th-century single-storey lean-to addition that replaced former boiler houses and chimney has been demolished, leaving scars in the brickwork.

The south engine house of 1797 has inserted windows, probably early 19th century, in its west side level with each half landing of the staircase, with original stair windows in the south wall. To the south is an attached engine house of circa 1810, raised by a storey after the site became a maltings. It features a projecting wooden hoist with taking-in doors to the upper west elevation, and below is a door and a malting window inserted into a tall blocked opening with a shallow-arched head. The right return has rectangular windows to the upper floors and two tall blocked windows to the lower part, one of which now has a door inserted. At mid-height are sandstone mountings for the engine's entablature beam. The three upper floors of the east elevation each contain a single window; the ground floor has a doorway cutting into an earlier tall blocked semi-circular-headed opening. The west and north elevations of the three-storey north engine house are obscured by the staircase block at the east end of the Cross Building and the Kiln respectively. Its west elevation has a tall arched window partially infilled with a smaller inserted window, and the ground floor has a lean-to addition with a segmental-headed window.

Internally, the building is entered at the south end through a doorway into a fireproof main stairway with sandstone steps carried on wooden beams, located within a bay shared with the first engine house of 1797 to the east. In its completed form, the mill was divided on lower floors by a cross wall, now removed, dating to the late 19th century. Evidence suggests that in 1796-7 it comprised six full bays and two short bays to the south of the cross wall, with a ten-bay extension added to the north soon after 1797 but prior to 1800.

The fireproof iron frame comprises two-piece cast-iron transverse beams joined at the centre and spanning the building's width between each bay. They are supported by three rows of cast-iron cruciform columns with delicately moulded bases and capitals, though their precise form varies on each floor. The beams and columns form a rigid frame tied together by wrought-iron tie-rods running axially between the beams. The building is not fully framed, as the brick walls support part of the floor weight. Ceilings have shallow brick arches. Throughout the building, castings of floor beams and columns incorporate features supporting the power transmission system. Central ground-floor columns align with the opening to the 1797 engine house at the south mill end and have rectangular housings for a drive shaft. Corresponding third-floor columns contain similar housing for a second main horizontal drive shaft. The lack of similar evidence on other floors suggests power transmitted from these two main drive shafts, possibly through intervening brick-arched ceilings containing numerous infilled slots for belt passage. Above the top mill floor is a fireproof ceiling of inclined brick vaults springing from cast-iron transverse beams similar to lower floor beams, supported by a single row of tall, slightly off-centre columns. Above the brick vaults are lightly-built wooden A-frame trusses.

The engine houses attached to the south mill end comprise two buildings of one bay each. The 1797 engine house retains its original room layout with a small cylinder chamber to its east end and a larger flywheel chamber to the west. An opening in its ground-floor north wall indicates the former flywheel bearing position. The original beam engine appears to have been installed above ground level. The circa 1810 engine house has a single chamber originally open through the equivalent of four mill storeys. Ashlar blocks in the south wall supported the crankshaft, and a brick-vaulted ceiling was added in the 1870s when a Corliss engine was installed. The northern engine house originally rose through the equivalent of three mill floors and retains evidence of bearing boxes that supported line shafting. Its south wall contains large ashlar supports for the flywheel shaft. Brick-vaulted ceilings are later insertions added when a new Corliss engine was installed in 1874. None of the engines survive.