HOLME Mill on the North Beck is seen here a century or so ago.

Houses up a still-rural Fell Lane are visible in the distance.

From 1892, when enterprising John Stell bought the Holme Mill estate, until 2014, when the firm he had founded moved to the Royd Ings Business Park, this former worsted mill was synonymous with the manufacture of paper tubes.

For decades John Stell and Sons supplied the textile industry with cop tubes, conical tubes, fly and cap tubes, parallel tubes, waterproof tubes, universal winding tubes, bleached white absorbent tubes, through mule tubes, corrugated tubes for winding, tubes for cheese winding, spools, cones, pirns, plain cheeses, flanged cheeses etc.

Production diversified beyond textile requirements.

Stell’s first toilet rolls appeared in 1909, and their “boxes for packing flowers etc” in 1937. Both world wars involved forms of armament.

A family firm, Stell’s encouraged social activities like dances, a ladies’ cricket team and works outings, which used to depart via Spring Gardens Lane so that director’s wife Mrs Samuel Stell could wave them off!