Crofthead Mill, Lochlibo Road, Neilston

Crofthead Mill is a large complex of cotton spinning and thread-twisting mills built into a hillside. The site was founded in 1792, with the oldest mill building dating to 1858, and a significant extension constructed in the style of Oldham mills between 1880 and 1881. The buildings are whitewashed brick, featuring segmental arches over windows, corbel tables, and blocking courses.

The West Mill is a five-story structure, measuring 8 bays by 19 bays. It includes an off-centre oval stair tower dated 1858, which shares a design similarity with R J & F Alexander’s Glasgow Mill. Some of the third-floor window sills have been lowered. Later lavatory, rest, and stair towers have been added to the south elevation. A low, multi-ridged roof is concealed behind a parapet. The windows feature a six-pane glazing pattern.

No. 1 Mill is a six-story building (with the top floor apparently added later), measuring 8 bays by 15 bays. It features a dentil cornice at the fourth and fifth floors. A rectangular, three-bay stair and water tower is centrally located on the west elevation. The top stage has round-headed windows, a corbelled balustrade, and wrought-iron angle finials. A French pavilion roof was removed around 1970, and the mill now has multi-ridged, shallow slate roofs. The windows contain nine- and twelve-pane glazing patterns.

The engine house projects to the southwest, with a two-bay by four-bay layout and two tiers of round-headed windows – the ground-floor windows have been altered for a mezzanine insertion. A rope race, featuring two tiers of dentil cornices and a pedestrian bridge leading to the site of a Pirn Mill, connects the engine house to the mill and a square-section hoist tower. It has a piended slate roof with a ridge ventilator and a pend underneath providing access from the engine house to the West Mill.

To the north, a lower, four-bay by one-bay block adjoins the north elevation of No. 1 Mill, potentially also serving as a rope race. A brick gable indicates the location of a former engine or turbine house. A single-story and basement, three-bay link, with a later gable, connects to an eleven-bay by six-bay, three-story and basement block built in 1881. This block has three piended slate roofs. A loading bay, possibly originally a boiler house, has a six-bay arcaded west elevation and a piended sheet-metal-clad roof.

An impressive array of lades and ponds are located uphill to the south, dating partly from the 18th and 19th centuries and partly remodelled in concrete around 1928. High, curved, squared-rubble coped boundary walls enclose the site along the road, which crosses the water systems via a rubble-built bridge. Brick gatepiers stand at the main road, alongside a circa 1950, single-story lodge with blocked windows.

The interior of No. 1 Mill is fireproof, featuring single brick arches between cast-iron columns and beams. The interior of the remaining buildings has not been inspected.