Robin Longbottom examines the illustrious history of a once-proud building which is now a decaying shell

STANDING a forlorn and roofless shell on the edge of Gresley Road is Low Mill.

Apart from the war memorial, it is Keighley’s only Grade II* listed building.

Throughout the country only six per cent of listed buildings are Grade II* listed and those that fall into this category do so because they are “particularly important buildings of more than special interest” and as such warrant every effort to preserve them.

Much abused and neglected over the past 30 years, Low Mill was the very first cotton mill to be built in Yorkshire at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

It is perhaps the oldest and arguably most important textile mill surviving today, not only in Keighley, but in the county.

It was built in 1779 on land owned by Lord George Cavendish of Keighley, a younger brother of the 5th Duke of Devonshire.

He already owned the manorial corn mill and had recently spent some money on improving and extending it and was looking for further opportunities to increase the revenue from his Keighley estates.

His steward in Keighley, Rowland Watson, already had contacts with the cotton industry through his brother-in-law, Thomas Ramsden of Halifax.

Ramsden was a manufacturer of wire cards for both cotton and woollen carding machines and had business interests both in Keighley and in Lancashire.

With growing civil unrest in the traditional cotton spinning areas of Lancashire (due to the hand spinners losing their livelihoods to industrial spinning), Cavendish and his steward saw that the opportunity was ripe to build a speculative mill in Keighley.

The undertaking was huge, as was the cost.

Today we only see the sad remains of the three-storey mill, the construction of which would have been fairly straightforward.

The most difficult aspect was to harness sufficient water to power a wheel big enough to drive the spinning frames and other machinery.

The critical part was calculating the fall of water required and the amount needed in reserve to keep a water wheel turning 24 hours a day for six days a week.

The mill was purposely located close to the River Worth, which would provide the water.

It was dammed with a high, stepped weir some 200 yards upstream from the mill and water was diverted from it through a sluice into a goit that fed into a large mill dam, or pond, that covered nearly two acres.

From the dam the water then passed through an arch in the mill wall and onto an internal water wheel, which powered the machinery via a system of drive shafts and pulleys.

The mill was leased in 1780 by William Clayton and his father-in-law, Thomas Walshman.

Clayton’s mill at Birkacre in Chorley had been burnt down by rioters in 1779 and no doubt he was glad to leave the troubles in Lancashire behind and move to Keighley.

The business was successful and within two years an even larger mill, five storeys high, was built adjoining the original (demolished in the 1970s).

Clayton also built himself a fine Georgian mill house, together with stables and gardens backing onto what is now Low Mill Lane.

Despite industrialisation, this part of Keighley continued to retain a rural character for over 50 years.

The land around the mill dam was landscaped with trees and even had a summer house on the northern side.

The Clayton family continued to spin cotton at Low Mill through until 1849, giving it the distinction of having been the very first and perhaps the last cotton spinning mill in Keighley.

Sadly the mill is now in very poor structural condition and has been placed on the English Heritage buildings at risk list.