The Big Mill

LEEK

SJ95NE MILL STREET 611-1/1/92 (South West side) 07/06/72 The Big Mill (Formerly Listed as: MILL STREET The Big Mill (Perry Lustre Ltd))

GV II

Silk mill. c1860. By William Sugden. Brick with stone dressings, and low-pitched or flat roof not visible. Italianate style. Narrow in plan with 5-window returns. EXTERIOR: 6 storeys, 21-window range. Advanced central 7-storeyed stair tower with arcaded upper storey and overhanging, shallow pyramidal roof. Rusticated quoins and window surrounds to tower, with plain string courses, and moulded cornice over the 6th storey. Shallow projecting bays each side of tower, (possibly built as privy towers?). Fenestration elsewhere has iron-framed windows with continuous stone cills and flat stone lintels, with round-arched windows forming an arcade to ground floor. Central doorway in base of tower with concave reveal with round-arched head, heavy key block and fanlight. Angles stressed by pilasters. Cornice and parapet. Engine and boiler house to rear, but only slight evidence of original power transmission. INTERIOR: not inspected. The mill is an important example of large-scale building for the silk industry, and represents one of the earliest mill buildings on this scale in Leek. It is also a good example of the mill-style developed by William Sugden, the leading mill architect at work in Leek at this time.

Listing NGR: SJ9796656749