The Mother of Mills - Thread - Urban Exploration Resource

Six years ago, pretty much to the day, I made my only other visit to what is half of, at least in my opinion, one of the best industrial explores the UK has ever had. I visited the other separate half of this mill complex, located half a mile up the road, numerous times between 2012 and 2015 and saw it go from an incredible time warp to a much more battered, tagged, but still incredible building. This part, however, was always much more of a challenge. Conversion had begun in the late 2000s however it ground to a halt following the economic crash of 2008 and ever since has been stuck in limbo. Up until 2015 the site was very well looked after with cameras covering much of it and an active security team with dog, but in mid-2015 the measures were scaled back leaving no permanent presence on site and nobody monitoring the cameras. Since then it's had sporadic bouts of activity and currently there is work ongoing in a part that had already at one point been converted into small business units, but what that will mean for the main bulk of the mill I don't know.

I had planned to do the 'easy, guaranteed' dye house part half a mile up the road first however much to my shock I arrived and found that asbestos removal teams had set up shop outside and the window which was the way in for over a decade sealed from the inside. So with that disappointed feeling we headed down the road to the main mill complex. After a walk around the outside we sussed the way in and spent an enjoyable few hours covering all that we could. From the outside the mill looks to be largely stripped, and truth be told it is, due to the failed conversion, however within the site there is one truly incredible time capsule - the engine house. Somehow the engine house gets missed by the majority of people who come here, it may be something to do with the actual entrance to it not looking like the entrance at all, maybe it's to do with how overlooked the entrance is by the neighbouring houses, I don't know. All I do know is that it is, by far, the single best example of a derelict mill engine room left in the country. It features three different kinds of power production machinery - steam, electricity and diesel, and a huge attached boiler house which is home to a trio of awesome brick encased boilers and a single standalone unit, which would have had a friend but it was removed some time ago. It's one of very few places that genuinely takes my breath away, and to think that at some point all of this will likely be scrapped is extremely distressing.

Of course our first port of call was the engine room, we then moved over into the main mill building, then the weaving sheds and a couple of smaller buildings. The weaving sheds will be demolished whenever a redevelopment eventually occurs but the rest is highly likely to be retained.

1. Looking down the site from the side of the weaving sheds - the central staircase of the imposing main mill with the chimney from the engine room/boiler house off to the side. Unfortunately the only exterior photo I got! The main mill is composed of two sides with the large central staircase in the middle, one side had got as far as having the roof stripped and a lot of the floor removed before work was stopped, the other side is considerably more intact.

4. Unfortunately the control panels have long, long since been dismantled.

Thanks for looking