Healings Flour Mill and Warehouses

Healings Flour Mill and Warehouses

A former flour mill built in 1865–6 by W H James of Tewkesbury for Samuel Healing and Son, with warehouses added in the later 19th century. The complex is constructed of red brick with blue brick and stone dressings, with slate tile roofs. The mill floors are supported on cast-iron and steel columns, whilst the warehouse floors are of reinforced concrete and steel. Metal casements with glazing bars and central hinged panes are throughout.

The mill is a rectangular building of five storeys and attic, with a five-storey rectangular extension added in the 1970s to the rear. Each floor is accessed by a south central winder stairwell. A multi-level bridge above first-floor height connects the mill to the warehouse to the south.

The warehouse comprises two parallel ranges of five to six storeys and attic, extending eastward towards the Mill Avon on a north-west orientation. The rear bays were extended or replaced in the 1930s and later periods.

The mill exterior is faced in English bond brickwork with regularly-spaced openings that have segmental blue brick heads with keystones and stone cills. Banding runs across the facade with a brick corbel table and dentil eaves cornice. Loading door openings are placed centrally in the end-gabled walls, though many openings have been adapted and some later sealed. The five-bay east front has window heads replaced in concrete at ground floor. The first floor left bay contains a door with step and hoist. Stone cill bands mark the second and fifth floors. Between the fourth and fifth floors runs a decorative blue and white brick band with a central plaque reading "BOROUGH FLOUR MILLS / ERECTED MDCCCLXV". The fifth-floor openings have flat rubbed brick heads.

The north front has loading doors with red brick heads and adaptations to the fifth and attic floors. Round-arched windows appear in the gable left and right bays. A steel platform is fixed outside the fourth-floor door with attached chutes. Below ground floor is a brick plinth and quay wall extending westwards. The 1970s mill extension is built of deep red brick in stretcher bond with blue brick detailing and similar height to the original mill. At lower level the building line is set forward and canted, with three sealed round-arched openings. The west elevation is largely obscured by the 1970s building; the right bay of the 1865 mill with corbel table and altered openings extends to the right of the extension and connects to the multi-level bridge to the warehouse. The bridge covers much of the south elevation of the mill, which retains original openings, some sealed or altered.

Inside the mill, each floor has two rows of columns towards the front half. Ground-floor steel columns are square in profile with chamfers, set on concrete bases and bolted to steel beams above. Upper floors have round-profile columns with moulded capitals and square-profile columns towards the south end. Steel panels and equipment are fixed to the floor structures. Twentieth-century machinery has been largely removed, though some equipment survives on the fifth floor. The attic floor has a rebuilt timber trussed roof with steel reinforcement to the collars. An open-well stair accessing each floor and adjacent offices in the west corner has mid-late 20th-century handrails and panelling. A mid-late 20th-century lift is fitted within the stairwell.

The warehouse exterior shows similar architectural treatment to the mill with banding, corbel table, and blue brick heads, keystones and stone cills to openings with metal window frames. The main front to the east has a gabled bay to the right with central loading doors adapted to windows, two of which retain segmental brick heads. The gable has decorative brick detailing including corbel table returns. The upper three storeys have flat heads to openings. The double-width range to the left has brick pilasters with corbelled capitals and six openings with brick heads and keystones at ground floor. Upper floors carry cill bands and decorative banding from the right bay continuing south. Blue brick diapering appears just below the gable end with an 1889 datestone. The gable has a central lunette opening with blue brick head and stone dressings, and a brick parapet with stone kneelers. This elevation and the south flank have vertical steel strap ties fixed at intervals. The south flank extends left in engineering brick with sealed openings of blue brick heads at ground and first floors. Further left is weatherboarding to an attached grain silo.

The north flank has reordering of ground-floor openings; upper three storeys have flat heads. To the right of this elevation the bridge to the mill attaches to upper floors of a gabled bay. West of the bridge an in-line brick range of approximately 1930s date continues the 1860s elevation. A footbridge extends from a fourth-floor door to the 1970s mill range. Metal pipes attached at first-floor height along the north elevation once pumped flour to a separately listed Grade II warehouse on the east side of the river.

Inside the 1870s warehouse, a timber trussed roof survives with some strengthening and adaptation. Other warehouse sections were not inspected.