Eckersleys' mills - welfare block

Image: © Alan Murray-Rust Taken: 13 Jun 2023

Eckersleys' built an extensive welfare building on the south west part of their site in around 1918-20. Probably by Stott & Sons, it is in red brick with buff terracotta dressings and ornamentation, Listed Grade II. It comprised separate dining halls for male and female employees and a large hall for entertainments. The latter had an external entrance enabling it to be used when the mills were not open. The low building in front of the dining halls was the kitchen with the entertainments hall at the far end. The complex is currently occupied by a roller skating rink. Part of the large spinning and weaving complex developed by the Eckersley family in the late 19th and early 20th century. The three extant mills replaced earlier mills and weaving sheds from the first half of the 19th century. Eckersleys’ colossal works were, at the height of production in the 1920s, one of the largest integrated textile manufactories in the country, operating more than 250,000 spindles and 1,650 looms in 6 spinning and 2 weaving mills.

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