Cheesden Lumb Lower

History

Cheesden Lumb Lower was one of the first mills in the valley built in or before 1786. It was water powered and originally set up as a woollen mill. As times changed it became a cotton mill. In an advert of 1809 it is listed as having a perching mill, blueing house, teaster and belonging tenters, and a stove house where sulphur dioxide fumes bleached woollen cloth for blankets. A carding engine was also introduced in this period. In 1838 the mill still had a set of stocks (fulling?) but the teaster and percher were abandoned. Spinning machinery was introduced.

Remaining Archaeology

As is visible in the photograph above, the facade remains to much of the front elevation. Photographs do exist of the full mill in Heywood Library. North of the facade there is an indentation which is possibly where the stove was situated. Remarkably, the axle to the waterwheel still survives, now embedded in overgrowth. Look out for the Dolphin carved in stone at the bottom of the front facade near to the water. Apparently a local artist did this.

Project Links

Cheesden Lumb Even Lower
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Images of Cheesden Lumb Lower

Location

You can view all of the Cheesden Valley mills on my Google Earth archi-map.
Access is from my archi-map page on my website.

Satellite image of Cheesden Lumb Lower, courtesy of Google Earth

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References

There are a number of references which require acknowledgement. Firstly the pioneer book by A.V. Sandiford andT.E. Ashworth called The Forgotton Valley is an important source of information and is available from the libraries at Heywood or Rochdale. For a general background Owen Ashmore's Industrial Archaeology of Lancashire is a must. There is also a good archive at Heywood Library.