Leigh Spinners

Leigh Spinners or Leigh Mill is a Grade II* listed double cotton spinning mill near the Bridgewater Canal in BedfordSuburb of Leigh in Greater Manchester, one of the three ancient townships that merged in 1875 to form the town of Leigh., Leigh, England. A product of the last generation of cotton-mill building, Leigh Spinners was designed by Bolton architects Bradshaw, Gass & Hope for the Horrocks Company, and built in two phases. The east section, comprising a six-storey mill, boiler house and chimney stack, was built in 1913; the matching west section was completed ten years later.^[1] One of the few double mills to be finished, it is one of the most complete still standing in Greater Manchester.^[2] Part of the factory is occupied by Leigh Spinners Ltd, who have manufactured carpets since 1969 and synthetic turf products for landscaping and sport since 2012.

The building is in poor condition and considered to be at risk by English Heritage. A charity, the Leigh Building Preservation Trust, has been formed to restore the steam engine and engine house. In September 2013 the charity was awarded a £75,000 grant by Waste Recycling Environmental Limited, a heritage fund that protects buildings of historical importance.^[3]

Structure

Each mill has a reinforced steel frame clad in red brick with buff-coloured brick bands and dressings. The six-storey blocks are ten bays long and seven wide and have corner water towers. The water tower to the older 1913 block rises two stages above roof level and is topped with a cupolaSmall dome on top of a roof or other high structure..^[1] Both blocks have offices, an engine house and rope race towers. The mill has a single chimney and the 1923 boiler house contains a cross compound mill engine made by Yates and Thom of Blackburn and once contained seven Lancashire boilers.^[1][4] The mill ran more than 200,000 mule and 4,800 ring spindles and its spinning machinery was supplied by Platt Brothers of Oldham.^[1]