Ebley Mill

Ebley Mill is a woollen mill, now council offices, located on Westward Road in Stroud. The complex comprises the main mill buildings and the Greenaway Buildings to the west, forming a rare and important survival of a functionally-integrated early 19th-century woollen mill complex.

The main mill was built in 1818 for Stanley and Stephen Clissold, and extended to the north in 1862 with the addition of a clock tower by architect G F Bodley, who was working for S S Marling. The buildings were restored for Stroud District Council between 1987 and 1990.

The structures are built in squared limestone with Welsh slate roofs, hipped to the 1862 block and gabled to the 1818 block. Stone lateral and end stacks rise from the 1818 range. Projecting from the west elevation of the 1862 range is a large stack with a moulded base that tapers to an octagonal shaft with moulded capping. The complex is arranged in an L-plan, with the long 1818 block positioned to the south of the 1862 block, which has a boiler house to its west.

The 1818 block rises four storeys and measures 18 by 3 bays. It features segmental-arched doorways and 2-light segmental-arched windows with central mullions, along with continuous roof dormers with canted roofs, much of which has been restored. The 1862 block is five storeys tall and 6 by 6 bays, articulated by shallow pilasters that frame flat-arched windows and semi-circular arched top-floor windows. All windows in this block are cast-iron with small panes. A projecting stair and clock tower occupies the south-west angle between the blocks, featuring a steeply pitched French Gothic roof with iron cresting and weathervane. A low one-storey boiler house projects to the north-east.

Internally, the mill includes timber floors supported by timber girding beams with inserted cast-iron columns for additional support. Brick arches to the ground floor mark the sites of original culverts serving water wheels. The 1862 range contains a stone stair and lift shaft in the south-west angle.

The site was purchased by the Clissolds in 1799. The traditional internal timber construction of the mill contrasts with the advanced construction of nearby Stanley Mill, which was built in brick around a cast-iron frame. The 1818 block was originally powered by five water wheels. Steam power was installed by 1862 when S S Marling, who had acquired the mill with his brother in 1840, commissioned Bodley's extensions. Bodley also designed nearby Selsley Church for Marling, whose French Gothic style matches the tower at the mill.

The Greenaway Buildings to the west comprise two detached multi-storeyed buildings attached to the east and west sides of the remains of a single-storey shed, all constructed in Cotswold limestone with two and three-light mullioned windows, dating from the early to mid 19th century.

The east building stands on a north-south axis, two storeys tall and ten bays wide, probably dating in part from around 1825 or earlier, with three-light windows and a gabled slate roof. A wagon entrance in the east elevation and a former taking-in door in the south end suggest its primary function was warehousing. A later two-storey transverse building in brick, now forming the west side of the site entrance, replaced the original north end.

The larger west building is five storeys tall, ten bays wide, with three-light windows and a gabled slate roof, probably added in the mid 19th century to replace a smaller building in the same position. Its large size, fenestration, and absence of taking-in doors suggest it originally housed manufacturing processes. A two-storey wing of six bays projects westwards from the north end and may have formerly contained steam plant.

The shed between the buildings has been largely replaced by a wide-span late 20th-century roof, though the original scale and construction are indicated by the surviving north end wall and south end bay.

The east and west buildings feature joisted floors supported by timber props with timber king-post roof trusses. The surviving south end bay of the shed is of pegged timber construction, suggesting an early 19th-century date and representing an unusual survival of the first stage in the development of the weaving shed. No clear evidence of steam power is visible, though the shed was likely used for powerloom weaving. The group as a whole is similar to the juxtaposition of late 19th-century weaving sheds with multi-storey ancillary buildings seen in the textile industries of other regions.