Shudehill Mill
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Shudehill Mill or Simpson's Mill was a very early
cotton mill A cotton mill is a building that houses spinning (textiles), spinning or weaving machinery for the production of yarn or cloth from cotton, an important product during the Industrial Revolution in the development of the factory system. Althou ...
in
Manchester city centre Manchester City Centre is the central business district of Manchester in Greater Manchester, England situated within the confines of Great Ancoats Street, A6042 Trinity Way, and A57(M) Mancunian Way which collectively form an inner ring road. ...
, England. It was built in 1782 by for
Richard Arkwright Sir Richard Arkwright (23 December 1732 – 3 August 1792) was an English inventor and a leading entrepreneur during the early Industrial Revolution. He is credited as the driving force behind the development of the spinning frame, known as t ...
and his partners and destroyed by fire in 1854. It was rebuilt and finally destroyed during the
Manchester Blitz The Manchester Blitz (also known as the Christmas Blitz) was the heavy bombing of the city of Manchester and its surrounding areas in North West England during the Second World War by the German ''Luftwaffe''. It was one of three major raids o ...
in 1940. One of Arkwright's larger mills, it was built three years before his patent lapsed. The mill had a 30 feet diameter water wheel and a
Newcomen atmospheric engine The atmospheric engine was invented by Thomas Newcomen in 1712, and is often referred to as the Newcomen fire engine (see below) or simply as a Newcomen engine. The engine was operated by condensing steam drawn into the cylinder, thereby creati ...
was installed. Doubts remain as to why the engine was installed, whether it was a failed attempt to power a mill directly by steam or was modified to assist the wheel. It is possible that this engine, constructed by Hunt, could have been one of the 13 engines installed in Manchester mills by Joshua Wrigley. Water from the upper storage pond turned the water wheel to drive the mill. The steam engine recycled water from the lower storage pond to the upper storage pond. Three more
Boulton and Watt Boulton & Watt was an early British engineering and manufacturing firm in the business of designing and making marine and stationary steam engines. Founded in the English West Midlands around Birmingham in 1775 as a partnership between the Engli ...
engines were installed to power the increasing number of spindles.


Location

Shudehill is in the centre of Manchester, near its highest point. Shudehill Mill was built between Miller Street and Angel Street to the north of Rochdale Road; its site is now a car park. The River Irwell and
Mersey The River Mersey () is in North West England. Its name derives from Old English and means "boundary river", possibly referring to its having been a border between the ancient kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria. For centuries it has formed part ...
had been made navigable to Manchester in the 1720s opening the way for importing raw cotton and exporting finished cloth and the
Bridgewater Canal The Bridgewater Canal connects Runcorn, Manchester and Leigh, Greater Manchester, Leigh, in North West England. It was commissioned by Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, to transport coal from his mines in Worsley to Manchester. It was ...
brought
coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...
from the
Worsley Navigable Levels The Worsley Navigable Levels are an extensive series of coal mines in Worsley in the City of Salford in Greater Manchester, England. They were worked largely by the use of underground canals (the navigable levels) and boats called starvationers ...
to the Castlefield Basin after 1761. Arkwright had patented a
water frame The water frame is a spinning frame that is powered by a water-wheel. Water frames in general have existed since Ancient Egypt times. Richard Arkwright, who patented the technology in 1769, designed a model for the production of cotton thread; ...
to spin cotton, and in 1775 patented a mechanical
carding Carding is a mechanical process that disentangles, cleans and intermixes fibres to produce a continuous web or sliver (textiles), sliver suitable for subsequent processing. This is achieved by passing the fibres between differentially moving su ...
engine. He took out a second patent that year for drawing and roving. All the pieces were in place for a large automated spinning mill to be built in Manchester. Shudehill Mill, a watermill, was next to a stream, but derived its power from cycling water between two storage ponds, a steam pump was used to replenish the upper pond from the lower. Shudehill Mill was close to three of Manchester's great stations,
Manchester Victoria railway station Manchester Victoria station in Manchester, England is a combined mainline railway station and Metrolink tram stop. Situated to the north of the city centre on Hunts Bank, close to Manchester Cathedral, it adjoins Manchester Arena which was ...
,
Manchester Exchange railway station Manchester Exchange was a railway station in Salford, England, immediately north of Manchester city centre, which served the city between 1884 and 1969. The main approach road ran from the end of Deansgate, near Manchester Cathedral, passing ov ...
and
Oldham Road railway station Manchester Oldham Road station opened in 1839 as the terminus station of the Manchester and Leeds Railway (M&LR) in Collyhurst, Manchester. When the M&LR opened in 1844 as its new Manchester passenger station Oldham Road was converted to a goo ...
.
Shudehill Interchange Shudehill Interchange is a transport hub between Manchester Victoria station and the Northern Quarter in Manchester city centre, England, which comprises a Metrolink stop and a bus station. History The tracks through the site were opened in 1 ...
is the present metro station. The mill itself would lie under the shadow of the
CIS Tower The CIS Tower is an office skyscraper on Miller Street in Manchester, England. Designed for the Co-operative Insurance Society (CIS) by architects Gordon Tait and G. S. Hay, the building was completed in 1962 and rises to 118 m (387 feet) in h ...
. The Shudehill Conservation Area is the other side of the tower.


History

The site was originally used as a brick works; it was purchased in 1781, by Arkwright and his partners. Simpsons Mill was a five-storey, Arkwright type mill 9.1 m wide and 60.9m long. It housed water frames, carding machines and roving and drawing frames using designs patented by Arkwright. It was driven by a 9.1 m diameter waterwheel driven from the upper storage pond. A steam engine drove a water pump to send the water back to the upper pond. It is thought that the steam engine was of the Newcomen type, though some sources speculate that it could have been of the Savery type. The pump had two cylinders, in diameter and a stroke of – the steam cylinder was in diameter. It operated at 11–12 strokes per minute. It used 5 tonnes of coal a day. It was perhaps because of this excessive coal consumption, that it was supplemented in 1790 with a 6 hp,
Boulton and Watt Boulton & Watt was an early British engineering and manufacturing firm in the business of designing and making marine and stationary steam engines. Founded in the English West Midlands around Birmingham in 1775 as a partnership between the Engli ...
rotative engine. They ran 4,000 spindles. A year later in 1791 they ordered a 40 hp rotative engine to replace them. This was the largest engine that Boulton and Watt had made at that time, and it was operating by the end of the summer in 1792. . A further 30 hp Boulton and Watt was bought in 1799. The mill was destroyed by fire in 1854. By 1888 it had been rebuilt using many of the original walls. It was at this stage that two extra storeys were added. The two reservoirs were filled in- it operated under steam. Then in October 1892, the mill was sold to Baxendale and Co., a firm of engineers and plumbers' merchants. They described 'the structure, of the mill, was massive brickwork with very heavy wooden floors supported by corbels in the walls.' They redeveloped the site. By 1908 the main building was subdivided. Baxendales mill was destroyed by enemy action on the night of 23 October 1940. The site remained derelict until it was redeveloped by NCP as a car-park. On 5 February 2006, BBC Channel 4 aired a Time Team episode entitled "Rubble at the Mill". An archeological exploration by Time Team explored the area on the grounds of the original building. This episode can be found on YouTube. In January 2017, funding was secured to begin the construction of Angel Gardens which will cover the site.


Architecture

Simpsons Mill was a five-storey, Arkwright type mill said to be 9.1 m wide and 60.9m long. Baxendaleś mill was seven storeys, and used the same massive walls. In 2004, an archaeological dig was done on the site to try to solve some outstanding questions. It had been claimed that the Newcomen engine was not used as a pumping engine, but was an attempt that failed to power the mill directly from steam. The original width of the first mill was in doubt, and the position of the wheel pit not known. The results suggest that the mill was always 12m wide, and the wheel pit was internal to the mill. The original function of the Newcomen engine remains undecided.


Power

* The mill was powered by a 9.1m water wheel, with the water being recycled by engine to the top reservoir. A form of pump-storage. * This was supplemented, or assisted by a Newcomen engine built by Hunt. * A 6 hp Bolton and Watt replaced or supplemented the Newcomen engine * A 40 hp Bolton and Watt was introduced to power more spindles * A 30 hp Bolton and Watt was introduced to power more spindles The engine house and the chimney were detached from the mill, though a later engine house may have been built adjacent to the centre on the eastern side.


See also

*
Textile manufacturing Textile Manufacturing or Textile Engineering is a major industry. It is largely based on the conversion of fibre into yarn, then yarn into fabric. These are then dyed or printed, fabricated into cloth which is then converted into useful goods ...


References

;Notes ;Bibliography * * * *


External links


BBC Archaeology: Shudehill Mill

Cottontown.org website

Spinningtheweb.org website
{{Lists of mills in England Textile mills in Manchester Cotton mills Demolished buildings and structures in Manchester Demolished manufacturing buildings and structures Buildings and structures demolished in 1940 History of Manchester