Bell Mill, Stanley Mills

To designs of Sir Richard Arkwright, perhaps with James Stobie, surveyor to the Duke of Atholl; millwright-work by Lowe of Nottingham, 1786-7. 5-storey and basement 3-by 12-bay cotton-spinning mill. Brick-built with stone cills and segmental arched windows; ground-floor and basement

rubble-built with square-headed windows and ashlar string courses.

W ELEVATION: 12-bay, slightly off-centre 3 bays advanced and gabled with flat apex. Right-most bay a latrine tower with small window added at 2nd. Left-most bay widely spaced.

E ELEVATION: 12-bay bay to right more widely spaced. Gangway to Mid Mill added circa 1830; iron plates on a cast-iron framework of T-section beams and joists and cast-iron columns, weather-boarding and vertically

glazed windows front basement.

N GABLE: 5-storey, 3-bay, centre bay blind except door at ground and window at 4th floor. Oculus at 5th. Projecting skewputts. Hexagonal bellcote with steep lead roof on later steel supports. Ship weathervane.

S GABLE: projecting bowed stairtower at right with curved windows, top roof tank, early 19th century, recently replaced with brick parapet. Single-lights to left. Oculus. Lean-to extension to ground floor with rubble-built segmental-arched windows and lean-to roof over belt

dressing machine.

W WING: single-storey brick built addition built in 2 stages: circa 1900 with timber roof, circa 1920 with steel roof. Neither is of special interest except that the latter lies on the foundations, lade, wheel-pit and tail-race of the 18th century corn mill.

Slate roof, originally with single skylights, long slated over. Windows sash and case 16-pane glazing pattern.

INTERIOR: Upper 3 floors are as in 18th century. Timber floors and transverse beams (bracing joists near gables) on single off-centre row of cruciform columns of 24/27mm section: 2240 mm high, top 750mm expanded from 108 to 260mm with a 95mm slot to receive transmission brackets.

2060mm centres, aligned lengthwise on lower floors, crosswise at top floor, with 2 timber posts. Collar-beam roof, originally floored. Ground and 1st floors combined in 19th century, cylindrical columns with low bearing pads. Basement columns 19th century to S (of East Mill).

N part likely to bear evidence for power take-off from external waterwheel. Timber spiral stair with generous landings and later accesses to Mid Mill. T-section cast-iron beam (early 19th century?) formerly carried water tank. At foot of stairs is the belt dressing machine for "Stanley Solid Woven Cotton Belting", a circa 1990

improvised timber and iron machine over an iron bitumen tank.

SLUICE CHAMBER: W of mill. Ashlar with wrought iron railings.