Building record 4679/4/1 - Blisworth Mill, including Engine Room and Office

Steam mill. Dated 1879. Orange colour Flemish bond brick with blue engineering brick and stone dressings. For Joseph Westley and Sons.

{1} Steam mill. Dated 1879. Orange colour Flemish bond brick with blue engineering brick and stone dressings. Welsh slate roof with coped gable ends with moulded stone kneelers and moulded brick eaves cornice. PLAN: Large rectangular mill with east side onto canal, west side facing yard, engine house and chimney on north west corner and office on west side of yard. EXTERIOR: 4 storeys, attic and basement. 8 bay east elavation facing canal with giant pilasters and saw-tooth segmental arches over top windows, 25 and 20 pane cast-iron windows in segmental arch openings; some blind or blocked. Blocked basement and ground floor doorway at centre. Originally a canopy over ground floor overhanging the canal. Similar west elevation but with truncated chimney and engine house in bays 1, 2 and 3, the truncated chimney with later tank on top; the engine house with similar windows, those in end gables with round arches. Similar 3-bay north and south ends, the centre bay rises into gable with round a left and right of which are tablets with inscription 'J Westley 1879', Small single storey office on west side of yard with brick pilastered window bays, the doorway with pediment and C20 porch. INTERIOR: No machinery. Boarded floors and large pine beams supported on cast-iron posts which diminish in size with each ascending storey. Queen strut roof. NOTE: Kelly's Directory lists Westley Bros and Clark as millars (steam). SOURCE: Kelly's Directory 1898.

{3} Large brick building of five storeys, eights bays alongside the canal and eight bays across the gable ends. Built in 1879 for Joseph Westley and Sons. The steam engine was housed in the two storey building across the three northern bays on the west side of the mill. In 1920 the mill was purchased by the Northampton Co-operative Society, but sold in 1928. Subsequently it was used as a warehouse until the 1970s. In recent years the building has been converted to provide 22 luxury apartments.

{5} Three photos dated 15.12.1993;

{6} The chimney was demolished in 1934.

<1> Clews Architects, 1980s, Database for Listing of Historic Buildings of Special Architectural Interest: Northamptonshire, 10/10001 (checked) (Digital archive). SNN102353.

<2> List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest ("Greenback"), F10 (unchecked) (Catalogue). SNN45262.

<3> Northamptonshire Industrial Archaeology Group, 2001, A Guide To The Industrial Heritage Of Northamptonshire, p.11 (checked) (Gazetteer). SNN104759.

<4> Northamptonshire Industrial Archaeology Group, 2011, A Guide To The Industrial Heritage of Northamptonshire (2nd Edition), p.14 (checked) (Gazetteer). SNN107622.

<5> Photographs of buildings in Blisworth (Photographs). SNN112040.

<6> Howes, H, 2022, Water and Steam Mills of Northamptonshire…and the birth of a flourishing flour milling industry, p. 5-6 (Book). SNN114227.

Record last edited

Oct 19 2022 9:06AM