Hartford Mill was a Grade II-listed building located off Block Lane, in the Freehold area of

Oldham Oldham is a large town in Greater Manchester, England, amid the Pennines and between the rivers Irk and Medlock, southeast of Rochdale and northeast of Manchester. It is the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, wh ...

, UK.

History

It was constructed as a cotton-spinning mill in 1907. Frederick Whittaker Dixon designed it for the Hartford Mill (Oldham) Company Ltd. It was extended in 1920 and 1924. It was Grade II-listed on 8 March 1993. In 1991,

Littlewoods Littlewoods was a retail and football betting company founded in Liverpool, England, by John Moores in 1923. By the 1980s, it had grown to become the largest private company in Europe, but subsequently declined in the face of increased com ...

vacated the building, and it has been unoccupied since then. A fire significantly damaged it in 2014, and a teenager died after falling through the roof of the building in 2015. It was proposed for demolition in 2018. Demolition of the mill was due to be completed in August 2020 but was interrupted by the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. Demolition restarted in July 2021 and the last remaining structure, the mill chimney, was demolished using explosives on 1 October 2023.

References

{{reflist, refs= {{cite news , last1=Green , first1=Charlotte , title=Mill, which has had 250 emergency incidents in three years, to be demolished , url=https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/hartford-mill-oldham-demolish-death-15692931 , work=Manchester Evening News , date=17 January 2019 , language=en {{cite web , title=Moment landmark Hartford Mill Chimney in Oldham demolished to make way for new housing , url=https://www.itv.com/news/granada/2023-10-01/moment-landmark-chimney-in-oldham-is-demolished , website= ITVX , date=1 October 2023 {{cite news , last1=Bainbridge , first1=Pete , last2=Tahir , first2=Fizah , title=Teenager dies after falling from abandoned Oldham mill , url=https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/teenager-dies-after-falling-abandoned-9313155 , work=Manchester Evening News , date=22 May 2015 , language=en {{cite news , last1=Fifield , first1=Jack , title=Drone captures Hartford Mill chimney's last moments , url=https://www.theoldhamtimes.co.uk/news/23827711.drone-captures-oldhams-hartford-mills-last-moments/ , work=The Oldham Times , date=2 October 2023 , language=en {{NHLE , desc=HARTFORD MILL, Oldham , num=1210026 , accessdate=31 August 2018 Oldham Grade II listed buildings in the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham Demolished buildings and structures in Greater Manchester Buildings and structures demolished in 2021