Darley Mill With Attached Chimney

This is a range of former corn mill buildings, dating from the late 18th century to the mid-19th century. The complex comprises an engine house, a main mill range, and a barn and byre range. The buildings are constructed of coursed squared gritstone, with graduated stone slate roofs.

The engine house is two storeys high and four bays wide. It has half-glazed double doors with tie-stone jambs, flanked by four-pane casement windows. A glazed cart entrance is positioned to the right, featuring a segmental keyed arch and a keyed round-arched window above. First-floor windows include three six-pane casements to the left and centre, and a round arched window mirroring the ground-floor arrangement to the right. Stone gutter brackets are present, and a chimney stack rises from the eaves.

The main mill building is three storeys high and six bays wide, with a projecting two-storey porch and a loading wing bay. Loading doors, also with tie-stone jambs and 20-pane side-sliding sashes, are located at ground and first floor levels in bay 3. Stone gutter brackets are present. Shaped kneelers and gable coping are visible to the left. The loading wing has a left return with two round arches, featuring herringbone tooling to the voussoirs, and a 9-pane window on the first floor. The right return has a single segmental archway.

The barn and byre range has a central segmental-arched cart entrance. End byre entrances have tie-stone jambs; the left entrance is flanked by paired recesses and a loading opening above.

At the rear, the mill chimney stands approximately 1.5 metres in front of the engine house. It has a square base and a moulded foot leading to a circular shaft, of which the lower 10 metres survives. A large, restored overshot waterwheel, dating from 1984, is situated against the centre of the mill building, with a remnant roof over the wheel.

Inside the mill building, cast-iron columns support iron cross beams, and original timberwork remains on the floors. Historic mill machinery includes an overshot waterwheel attached to the rear wall, with associated gearings, belts, and a drive wheel still in place on the ground and first floors. The roof structure features five double queen strut trusses to the main range, and three unusual king post trusses to the loading wing - these consist of a base bolted between angled cross beams of a scissor-brace type. The barn and byre range has four double queen post trusses with notches for angled braces and iron tie-bands. Several millstones have been incorporated into the revetment of the millpond bank. An iron rim bears the inscription ‘George Maris Maker Leeds 1841'.