Three brilliantly restored Huddersfield mills are featured in a major northern exhibition showcasing the great ways new life has been breathed into West Yorkshire’s heritage.
Photographer Neil Horsley, who has a background in planning and regeneration, has carried out a labour of love over the last three years profiling more than 30 mills across the region, interviewing the people who have spent time, effort and a massive amount of money transforming them into something completely different.
The three former Huddersfield textile mills are the five-storey Phoenix Mills on St Andrew’s Road in Huddersfield, The Carding Shed in Holmfirth and Holme Mills between Slaithwaite and Marsden.
They are alongside other well-known mill transformations, including Redbrick Mill in Batley, Dean Clough in Halifax, Salts Mill in Saltaire and Black Dyke Mills in Bradford, among many others.
All feature in The Mills Transformed Exhibition put on by Ian at Bradford Industrial Museum which is there until February 2 next year. The hope then is that the exhibition will come to Huddersfield at some point.
Neil, of Wilsden near Bradford, said: “What I have tried to do is also tell the human interest stories. Behind every mill transformation is invariably one or two key individuals who have had the vision, passion and persistence to drive forward these complex development schemes. So, Mills Transformed is as much about people as it is about property.
“They have enormous tenacity in overcoming the financial and administrative hurdles and negativity associated with undertaking large scale building restoration projects. They are initially attracted to the challenge of preserving a unique building but this evolves into an emotional commitment and a sense of civic duty to bring about the preservation of local landmarks.
“For many, the restoration of a mill becomes a lifetime’s work, spanning a number of years and becomes their personal legacy.”
Phoenix mills was originally the home of spinner and weaver T and H Blamires for nearly a century until the business ended in 1961.
The five-storey mill became the home of specialist cooker extraction hoods manufacturer the Westin Group and in 1994 Huddersfield businessman and entrepreneur John Eastwood acquired the Westin Group along with its Phoenix Mills premises.
In 2014 the adjoining Grove Works on St Andrew’s Road was bought from yarn spinner Z Hinchliffe to enable the business to expand and diversify.
Project Manager Ivan Moorhouse has overseen the transformation over the last decade.
The award-winning project has involved new window installations, an extensive programme of insulation, new service and lifts, creation of bespoke office accommodation and design and test areas while dealing with unexpected issues such as the discovery of a large underground reservoir tank. A training and meeting room and even a bar with space for staff socialising has been created on the top floor of the building.
Neil says: “The project is a superb example of how mills can be successfully refurbished to provide accommodation and facilities meeting the needs of modern manufacturing businesses.”
The Carding Shed is home to IK Sports Classic and the Oil Can Café, two unique businesses established by Ian and Nicola Kellett. The Carding Shed is part of the former 200-year-old Washpit woollen mill complex on Green Lane near Holmfirth.
The café, run by Nicola, is home to an eclectic mix of motoring and cycling memorabilia inspired by the Goodwood Revival Festival – an annual historic motor race meeting that celebrates iconic cars and fashion between 1948 and 1966.
This fits in really well with IK Sports Classics which provides a complete range of car restoration services to collectors in the UK and overseas and will often have dozens of classic cars, some dating back to the 1930s, being worked upon or being stored for collectors.
Both businesses employ 30 local people and the café serves around 1,000 meals a week.
Substantial work was needed to update the run-down Carding Shed part of Washpit Mills including building a bakery, extensive partitioning to create separate workshops and filling large pits under the Carding Shed floor with polystyrene blocks before concreting.
The building was finally finished in May 2018 and Ian said: “The first time we walked into the mill we had the feeling that it was saying ‘thank goodness, I’m now going to have something going on that I’ll enjoy.’ It’s a whacking great mill and it’s the best thing ever. It’s very welcoming and protective.”
Holme Mills was built in 1908 next to Huddersfield Narrow Canal near Marsden and was used for a range of textile operations before parts of the building fell into disrepair.
It was saved in 2013 by high end coffee roasting company Dark Woods which supplies across the north of England and includes upmarket London department store Fortnam and Mason as one of its customers.
Co-founders Paul Meikle-Janney, Damian Blackburn and Ian Agnew were searching for a rural mill location providing an ‘evocative’ workplace offering flexible and cheap space which could be re-modelled to fit the company’s specific needs.
Before they could move in they had to concrete the floors, fill an underfloor pit, sand blast the walls back to the original brick work and repair leaking windows.
Dark Woods moved into the building in 2014 and has since carried on the improvement work to include roasting, warehousing and distribution facilities, a pop-up café and meeting/training spaces. As other units have become available the business has expanded to now occupy 7,500 square feet and employs 15 staff.
The investment made by Dark Woods in the building has helped to attract more businesses in there such as Zapato Brewery which has quickly become a very popular venue.
Neil’s book, Mills Transformed, will be formally published in January 2025 and costs £25 but is already on sale at Bradford Industrial Museum, Salts Mill in Saltaire and the reception at Dean Clough in Halifax.
For more information and to pre-order it go to Mills Transformed – Book
Written by ANDY HIRST who runs his own Yorkshire freelance journalism agency AH! PR (https://ah-pr.com/) specialising in press releases, blogging, website content, copywriting and ghost-writing autobiographies.
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