Monument record MDR422 - Clough Mill, Primrose Lane, Little Hayfield

Clough Mills, Little Hayfield, is a 19th century textile mill in stone with a hipped slate roof. The building is of three, four and five storeys, the windows having hinged casements. There is a square tower at one angle. Originally it was a cotton mill. There are the extensive ruins of an earlier building behind. (1) Photograph collection. (2-3) Clough Mill is an impressive four/five storey gritstone mill building probably dating in part from the 1830s, being one of three mills located on this small tributary of the Sett. The west end has a pitched roof of local stone and would seem to be substantially earlier than the main body of the mill. Winches, notices etc. from cotton mill days remain and the mill is in reasonable condition despite the apparent lack of use. Some of the adjacent housing in Little Hayfield could have been associated with the mill. Formerly the cotton spinning mill of Hibbert and Alcock (1846) although owned by the Slack family. In the tithe award it is described as a 'rough water cotton mill'. It is now apparently used principally for storage of 'Lastite' paints and adhesives [1984]. (4) The OS map of 1898 shows a number of buildings and a mill pond. There is also a leat on the east side of the mill, running south from a possible earlier mill pond site which, by 1898, had silted up. (5) The original small water-powered mill built in the 1790s was at the western end and this section of the building is today labelled 'The Wheel House'. (7)