THE THE WATER MILLS OF SHIPLEY

Most of the occupations shown in the Census Returns are in the woollen trade, e.g. wool
carders, cloth millers and wool slubbers, confirming that the worsted trade had moved
into the big steam-powered mills, leaving the little mills barely surviving in the dwindling
woollen trade.
In October 1897 a meeting of Shipley Urban District Council considered the application
of Mr. Thomas Williams of New Hirst Mill for a supply of
piped water to his premises. The Sanitary Committee reported that the residents in the
cottages at New Hirst were at present obtaining their water from
a stream running alongside the Cemetery (opened in 1895), and that the supply was possibly
polluted with sewage from the New Brighton district. It was decided that samples of
the water would be analysed.
In December 1897 the Sanitary Committee agreed that additional closet accommodation
be provided at New Hirst Mill and the cottages adjoining; while in June 1898 the Waterworks
and Estate Committee recommended that a three-inch water main be laid from the
Cemetery Chapel to New Hirst Mill. That the Council should be considering these necessary
provisions when the mill was nearly at the end of its useful life seems somewhat
ironic.
The Rosse Estate Sale
s noted earlier, New Hirst Mill was part of the Manor of Shipley. The manor had
A been purchased in 1823 by John Wilmer Field of Heaton Hall, who was also Lord of
the Manor of Heaton. His daughter Mary inherited both manors on the death of her father.
She married Lord Oxmantown, afterwards Earl of Rosse, of Birr Castle, Ireland, and
her husband became the Lord of the Manor. On the Earl’s death in 1867 the manors reverted
to his widow Mary. On her death in 1885 the manors were inherited by her son,
the fourth Earl.
In 1911 the Rosse estates in Shipley were offered for sale by auction. In the Sale Catalogue,
Lot 113, totalling 43.119 acres, comprised: ‘(1) Farmhouse
and part of Hirst Farm; (2) Hirst Wood, New Hirst Mill and six cottages the mill and
cottages being leased to Miss Crompton Stansfield of Esholt, the lease expiring lst May
1915. The mill, stone built, stone slated, in four floors, each about 81 ft by 27 ft, has outbuildings
nearby. The cottages are stone built, stone slated, comprising five cottages of
two rooms and one of three rooms’. This Lot went for £2,300 to Sir James Roberts Bart.,
the proprietor of Salt’s Mill.
In January 1921 a special meeting of Shipley Urban District Council was called to consider
a letter from Sir James. He writes, regarding a parcel of 54 acres of land near Salt’s
Mill: ‘I offer you all that the trustees conveyed to me, for £13,000. If you accept I will
make a gift to the Council of Hirst Farm, Hirst Wood, mill and cottages, comprising
43.119 acres’.
The offer was accepted. The mill and most of the cottages were demolished in the 1920s,
and Hirst Wood opened to the public.
References
AD1822 Wakefield Deeds Registry, Vol. HX/138/139
1833 Factories Enquiry Commission. Supplementary Report. Employment of
Children in Factories.
1897 Shipley Times, Wharfedale and Airedale Observer.
1898 Shipley Express.
1911 W.Y.A.S. Bradford, Sale Catalogue, Rosse Estate, also Yorkshire
Observer, l st December 1911.
1921 Minutes of Shipley Urban District Council.
1923 Minutes of Shipley Urban District Council
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