Description and History of Site:-
Site of an early corn mill rebuilt for cotton spinning by 1803 with another mill added 1831. The first three storey mill measured 60 ft by 29 ft (18.29m by 8.84m) in 1822. In 1833 the wheel for this mill measured 24 ft by 7 ft (7.31m by 2.13m). The second mill was constructed slowly starting in 1831 with a large new dam and the water being brought some distance to the mill. The wheel for this second mill measured 39 ft by 5 ft 6 ins (11.88m by 1.68m). In 1833 the machinery was used for spinning cotton yarn and by 1837 power loom weaving had been added.

Most of the mill complex was demolished in 1968 and all that remains are fragments of walls visible adjacent to the PRoW that cuts through the site and crosses Fir Beck. The site was developed for housing after 1968. It concentrated, at least for some years, on board for use in the textile and shoe-making industries, using mainly pulp and rags.

On the roadside is a row of former back-to-back millworkers' cottages just east of the mill site. The water-powered corn mill that originally stood on the site and was taken down and rebuilt as a cotton mill. By the 1860s the site was in use as a paper mill and remained thus until the 1940s when it was closed down, lying derelict until demolished.

Early occupants of this mill are not known, but in 1822 Samuel Westerman was listed as a cotton spinner at this water mill next to Barden Beck. By 1826 the mill had been purchased by Henry & Thomas Bramley who started building the second mill in 1831. The mills were to let in 1843 and again in 1851.

Both mills were then taken by Thomas Blakey, still for cotton spinning, but by 1863 they were being used for making paper by Thomas Hagar. Later they came into the possession of the Whiteley family from Pool-in-Wharfedale and production was moved there. The mill was subsequently demolished and houses were built on the site. The large dam built for the 1831 may be seen in the nearby Trollers Gill.

A dam upstream of Parceval Hall (at SE 067 614), that served the mill's two overshot wheels, burst in 1899 and was not repaired and it was replaced by a turbine on Fir Beck.

It closed in the 1940s and the site was re-developed for housing in the 1970s.

Further Reading and References:-
Some pictures of the mill when still in use at http://www.skyreholme.org/historical_pictures.html

Merridew, S. 1999. 'Skyreholme paper mill' Yorkshire History Quarterly, 4 (3), pp. 130-32.
Ingle, G. Yorkshire cotton: the Yorkshire cotton industry, 1780-1835. Carnegie, 1997
Ingle, G. Yorkshire Dales textile mills: a history of all the textile mills in the Yorkshire Dales from 1784 to the present day. Royd Press, 2009.

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Key Words :- water powered paper mill cotton textile spining mill disused

Viewing the Site :- visible from adjacent road on the north side and PRoW on the south side

Address :- Skyreholme, Skipton, North Yorkshire, BD23 6DL
Grid Ref :- SE 06582 60313
Co-ordinates :- Lat 54.038754 , Long -1.900988
Local Authority :- Craven District Council
Pre 1974 County :- Yorkshire - West Riding
Site Status :- Site demolished or no longer extant
Site Condition :- Site redeveloped to residential housing
Site Dates :- c. 1850 - 1968
Record Date :- 11 February 2018

Copyright :- cc-by-nc-sa 4.0 © David Johnson