IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
English Street, LEIGH, WN7 3EH

A five storey spinning mill by the Bridgewater Canal and built in 1893 with a 1200 horsepower J & E Wood mill engine. Now in multiple occupancy. The chimney has been demolished.

A five storey spinning mill by the Bridgewater Canal and built in 1893 with a 1200 horsepower J & E Wood mill engine. Now in multiple occupancy. The chimney has been demolished.

Brooklands is closest and Mather Lane Mill is right background. The Brookland Mill engine house is visible and was home to a J & E Wood horizontal cross compound.

In pride of place is the projecting engine house for a 1200 horsepower horizontal cross compound mill engine built in 1893 by J & E Wood of Bolton. It was a cotton spinning mill but is now in multiple occupation.

Looking along the Bridgewater Canal towards former cotton spinning mills. On the left is Brooklands Mill. A five storey spinning mill by the Bridgewater Canal and built in 1893 with a 1200 horsepower J & E Wood mill engine that was in the projecting engine house with tall windows. Now in multiple occupancy. The chimney has been demolished. On the right is Mather Lane Mill. Now being converted to housing. This cotton spinning mill was built in 1882 to the design of Bradshaw, Gass & Hope. There is a partly internal engine house on the north elevation (facing). The engine was a very unusual beast being an 800 horsepower inverted vertical tandem compound by J & E Wood of Bolton. It had an ejector condenser and a specially built flywheel with a rim speed of 7000 feet/minute (usually about 5,000 feet per minute or nearly 60 mph). If I recall correctly it also had a parallel motion guide for the crosshead. A very interesting design for its day and I wish I had seen it.

A five storey spinning mill by the Bridgewater Canal and built in 1893 with a 1200 horsepower J & E Wood mill engine. Now in multiple occupancy. The chimney has been demolished. The large engine house is in the left background. The closer three storey section appears to be the mill's offices. They were often detached. There is a large and impressive door to the offices (seen in a separate photograph).

A five storey spinning mill by the Bridgewater Canal and built in 1893 with a 1200 horsepower J & E Wood mill engine. Now in multiple occupancy. The chimney has been demolished. This shows the imposing entrance to the three storey office block that is next to the stair tower.

This is the block south of the Bridgewater Canal

Looking west along the Bridgewater Canal. From left to right Brooklands Mill, occupied by several small firms, Mather Lane Mill and Bedford Spinning Mill, which was derelict.

Brooklands Mill on the left, with the engine house identifiable from its tall windows; Mather Lane Mill straight ahead. Taken from the former Thomas Clayton (Oldbury) Ltd oil tanker 'Spey'.