Description and History of Site:-
Now known as Brooke's Mill Heritage Office Park, about one third of the C19 and early C20 buildings remain. A variety of commercial, service and retail businesses now operate from the site, including a film studio and art gallery. This is the mill featured on the front cover of Giles & Goodall's 'Yorkshire Textile Mills'.

Two listed structures:
1134444 (II) "Hammer-dressed stone. Ashlar dressings. Pyramidal lead roof. 4 stages of slightly diminishing size, each surmounted by moulded cornice. 2nd stage is tallest, and has 3 continuous vertical panels, each round-arched and with 2 super imposed slits. Third stage is framed by pilasters and has one clock on each face. Fourth stage has 3 round-arched louvred openings."

1134443 (II) "Early or mid C19. Hammer-dressed stone. Pitched stone slate roof. 4 storeys. Stone brackets to gutter. 13 window range, 4 in end elevation. Gable has parapet with scrolled consoles at either end, and pediment in centre. (cf Baptist Chapel Milnsbridge). Blocked archway with 3-centred head, rising through ground and 1st floors: plain raised impost band, and pediment over." Giles and Goodall wrote: "Woollen mill, established c1816-17 by Brooke family of Honley, long-established manufacturers and merchants. Built as integrated mill using both hand power (for spinning and weaving) and water power (for preparation and finishing). Substantial remains from this early period include large warehouse, five-storeyed ten-bay fireproof mill (Mill 1), hand-spinning and weaving shops, and five-storeyed loomshop added c1830. Six-storeyed thirteen-bay mill (Mill 2) built in 1828-9, probably to house machine spinning. Steam power added to supplement waterwheels and in 1834 power provided by three waterwheels (thirty, thirty, and sixty horse power) and two steam engines (thirty-four and forty horse power). Shed for powerloom weaving added in 1838, a very early example of the change from handlooms in the woollen branch, and extended in 1840s. Brookes built terraces of cottages on two sides of mill complex, St Paul's Church (1848, by R D Chantrell of Leeds), and Armitage Bridge House. Post-1850 expansion and rebuilding of dyehouses and sheds at lower end of site."

From about 1905, water turbines were also in use, though it is not certain whether these we used to provide motive power directly or solely as electricity generators. If the latter, this would be a quite early example of hydro-electric generation in the textile mill context.

The school at the south east corner of the site shown on the 1888 map also appears (though rather smaller) on the OS 6" map of 1848. It seems likely that this was also provided by the Brooke's.

Textile manufacturing on the site ceased in 1987.

Further Reading and References:-
Yorkshire Textile Mills 1770-1930 Colum Giles and Ian H Goodall 1992 London HMSO.
https://www.huddersfieldhistory.org.uk/huddersfields-history/articles/industrial-villages-south-of-huddersfield/

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Key Words :- textile mill

Address :- Armitage Road , South Crosland, Huddersfield , West Yorkshire, HD4 7NR
Grid Ref :- SE 1337 1359
Co-ordinates :- Lat 53.618685 , Long -1.799354
Local Authority :- Kirklees Council
Pre 1974 County :- Yorkshire - West Riding
Site Status :- Listed - Grade II
Historic England List No - 1134443,
Site Condition :- Site in alternative industrial use
Site Dates :- 1816 - 1987
Record Date :- 3 August 2016

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