Old Glossop
Most of the 19 mills we’ve covered so far in this series started out on their own in the countryside, surrounded by fields and their own little cluster of cottages. In the final two posts, we’re going to look at the area’s first mill town, and how it helped give birth to the second.
Old Glossop, just Glossop till the 1840s, now describes itself as a village, but in the late 18th century was a town, the only one in the area. It had the church, the market, shops, pubs, the estate bailiff and agent, and from 1821 a town hall, now Shepley’s café. It was also at the junction of two powerful streams, so an obvious place for water-powered mills.
The biggest stream was the Shelf Brook, but it meandered around on its flood plain, the area known as The Warth, an old term for a flat meadow beside a stream. To create viable sites the brook first had to be straightened and lowered, and an access road, now Shepley Street, built along it, diverting the old way to Sheffield, Doctor’s Gate, which had originally started from the market place. As later with the Torside Goit, which created mill sites along Padfield Brook, this preparatory work was almost certainly financed by the Duke of Norfolk, who stood to make far more from leasing mills than from renting farms.
It’s also likely that the Duke, through his agents, played a major part in ensuring a reliable supply of water. In stages over nearly 30 years, a complex system of weirs, goits and ponds was developed linking six mills on the two streams, each mill depending for its supply on the one above. As there were never fewer than three owners or operators, competing with one another and often in financial trouble, this system couldn’t have worked unless the agents were actively enforcing the rights to water which were written into the leases.
In the first stage, starting around 1784, mills were built on The Warth by John Shepley, a local farmer, and Joseph Hallam. Shepley handed on to his son Robert, whose house next to the mill survives – Mossy Lea House. Hallam’s millpond also survives – the dam is now at the top of Mossy Lea Drive. Then, in 1789, Benjamin Goodison built a mill, later known as Thread Mill, further up the brook. The ponds of these three mills were all supplied by a goit running from a weir east of Tanyard.
Next, in 1791 James Starkie built a mill, later known as Hawkshead, on Blackshaw Clough. Starkie was from Manchester, Hallam from Oldham. This was clearly an attractive spot for outside investors, and the next to arrive, in 1800, was Robert Bennett, from Mottram. He was described as a “gentleman”, meaning that he would buy or build mills as an investment, then rent them out.
He first bought Hallam’s mill and installed a tenant, then in 1805 bought Thread Mill. In 1807 he built a new mill, plus 13 cottages which came to be called Barrack Row, “barrack” being then a common term for accommodation for immigrant workers. The native population of the area was very small, so millowners had to attract workers from elsewhere – many from Yorkshire.
To supply the pond, Bennett made a new goit (see photo, 1960s) coming off the existing goit above Tanyard. However, it ran at least 10 feet higher up the hill, so the water would flow more slowly than to the other three mills, and in a drought perhaps not at all. He may have realised this even as he was making it, as in November 1806 he sought tenders for a longer goit, starting from a weir at Mossy Lea 45 feet above the existing one. Completed by 1809, it ran much higher up the hillside and so could also supply Hawkshead Mill, and presumably Mr Starkie shared the cost.
It also enabled Bennett, around 1811, to build another mill even higher up, on the end of his line of cottages. He therefore owned four mills, the two newest quite big for their time, and with an excellent belt-and-braces water supply.
He just needed tenants for three of them, but there was a problem. When he invested, he didn’t appear to know there was a war on. The Royal Navy’s blockade of French ports was hurting Napoleon, but also British textile exports. The cotton trade was in recession, and although he advertised, there were no takers.
Until……..
NEXT – Part 10b: Old Glossop – The Waterloo Mills
PREVIOUS – Part 9: Arundel Street and Surrey Mills