Weaving shed

A weaving shed is a distinctive type of single storey mill developed in the early 1800s in Lancashire, Derbyshire and Yorkshire to accommodate the new power looms weaving cotton, silk, woollen and worsted. A weaving shed can be a stand alone mill, or a component of a combined mill. Power looms cause severe vibrations requiring them to be located on a solid ground floor. In the case of cotton, the weaving shed needs to remain moist. Maximum daylight is achieved, by the sawtooth "north-facing roof lights".

The early textile trade relied on domestic outworking. Handloom weavers would take the yarn to their cottage loom shops, and return the completed fabric to the mill. Reliable power looms that could be worked from an overhead line shaft were not available before Kenworthy and Bulloughs weft stop motion, the roller temple and the loose reed which appeared in the 1840s. The first weaving floors were on the ground floor of the existing narrow mills, where the workpiece was lit by tall exterior windows. The weaving shed appeared around this time. They initially adjoined existing mills, and then were built as standalone mills by speculating investors or by industrial co-operatives of former handloom weavers. Either group would run the looms themselves or operate the shed as a room and power mill. Here as the name suggests, space was rented to other companies who could specialise in weaving with out the skills needed to finance, build and maintain a building. Weaving sheds were cheap to build and fireproof having no wooden beams. They were also safer, because their north-facing roof windows meant they were not as dependent on gas-lighting as were spinning mills.

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