Kearsley Mill

Kearsley Mill

Kearsley Mill, Prestolee. A Grade II listed building with an exceptional chimney.
Cotton
Architectural style	Edwardian
Owner	Richard Haworth Ltd Est (1876)
Construction
Floor area	240,000 sq ft

Kearsley Mill is a 240,000 sq ft, late period cotton mill located in the small village of Prestolee in Kearsley, Greater Manchester. A near complete example of Edwardian mill architecture, the building now functions as headquarters for a number of businesses and is still used in the continued manufacturing and distribution of textiles by Richard Haworth Ltd Est (1876), part of the Ruia Group. The mill is a Grade II listed building.

Kearsley Mill is one of over 100 mills which were built in the Greater Manchester area when industry was booming in the 19th and early 20th century. The confluence of the River Croal and Irwell in the valley of Prestolee and Ringley created the ideal location for early industry to develop, as described in 1911, ‘a busy industrial place. There are collieries, iron foundries, paper mills, powerloom mills, spindle works, and chemical works; bricks and tiles are made and cotton-spinning carried on’.

Mills of this period were large, their decoration was lavish reflecting Edwardian taste and prosperity. Kearsley Mill was no exception. During the 19th Century, spinning mill architecture developed from the narrow section, pitched roof design to the five and six storied, rectangular flat roofed outlines with large paned windows. The machinery was driven by shafting from an adjacent engine and boiler house as seen in the Kearsley Spinning Mill which employed both turbine driven generators and electric motor driven machinery.

The Mill had 24 bays for mule spinning machines, large paned windows were installed for light and the mill was innovatively designed and constructed using fireproof materials; floors made from reinforced concrete, supported with interior cast-iron columns and rolled steel beams".

Kearsley Mill is a good example of a mill that generated electricity from its own steam turbines. Powered by electricity which was generated on site, the group drive system allowed each electrical motor to drive a group of machines via line shafting.

"The early cotton mills combined both hand and water powered machinery, then, as the size of mills increased, steam powered bean and horizontal engines replaced the water wheel. These engines were, in the latter half of the 18th century, of compound design with the high pressure steam passing into two, three or four cylinders of increasing diameter to take full advantage of the expensive force of the steam powered electric motor drives for mill machinery as exemplified in the Kearsley Spinning Co of Prestolee".