| Summary : The now demolished Havelock Mills was a large complex of textile mills built to the south of the city of Manchester in the first half of the 19th century. Formerly named Great Bridgewater Street Mills, it comprised a large and congested complex of steam-powered silk and cotton spinning mills built between circa 1825 and circa 1844. The site is located between Great Bridgewater Street and the Rochdale Canal and contained three principal buildings. The largest building in the complex was a seven-storey silk mill built circa 1825-8, and its attached wing added circa 1830. A detached engine house and boiler house were built in the yard at the same time as the wing. The third building was a six-storeyed cotton mill, also with an attached wing, which had been built to the east of the silk mill by circa 1844. The silk mill and its wing used a combination of heavy-timbered and joisted floors, whilst the cotton mill was of brick-vaulted fireproof construction. The lower storeys of the attached wing were also fireproof, with heavy floors of stone flags supported by a grid of cast-iron beams. The mills formed an interlocked L-shaped block forming a large rectangular courtyard on the north bank of the Rochdale Canal, the larger silk mill occupying the west and north sides and the cotton mill the east and south sides. The mills were demolished in the 1990s, with the site now occupied by a Jurys Inn hotel. |