Also known as MAGBROOK
North side of Carr Street, just below its junction with Springwood Street.
Originally water powered.
1788 – Probably built [Andrew Todd – RHS Mag No:15 page 7]
First possible reference I have found is an advertisement in the Manchester Mercury:
14th May 1771 – ‘To be Sold – one of three lots – One other Copyhold Estate of Inheritance, called Magbrook... consisting of a good stone house and convenient outbuilding and upwards of three acres and a half Land of the like measure’ [Manchester \mercury 14th May 1771]
Another reference relating to this site
‘On 30th July 1783 Thomas Kershaw ‘of Carr. Yeoman’, sold to Robert Meadowcroft of Holcombe, yeoman, James Meadowcroft and Robert Tickle shopkeepers a plot of land: ten yards in length from east to west and six yards in breadth from north to south, being part of, and situate at the bottom of the Meadow at Carr and known by the name of the Folds, on the west side of the mill course, for the purpose of building an engine house....with free liberty...to go round the same and set ladders and other utensils for repairing the buildings now built or hereafter to be built thereon. And also free usage of the water and watercourse or mill race which runs through the said meadow...in order to bring it conveniently to turn the wheel or wheels of the said engine house and buildings..’[Court Book of the Manor of Tottington (DDHCI liber Q folio 115 Michaelmas 1783)]
23rd January, 1788 The consortium completed their building work and (when they sold to Peel & Yates) the site had been transformed into a cotton carding mill, with dams, wheel race, aqueduct, water wheel, cog wheel and shaft’ [Court Book of the Manor of Tottington (DDHCI Liber S, folio 149 Easter 1788)]. Here I suspect are the origins of Carr Mill and its lodge, known as Devil Hole. [RHS Magazine No:15 page 7 article by Andrew Todd] In this article Andrew refers to this area being known as Lower Buckley Fold [1842 Tithe Map]
1809 The Poor Rate Assessment for Tottington Lower End lists William Greenhalgh – Higher Buckley Fold, new addition.
1818 William Greenhalgh cotton manufacturer at Buckley Fold. [Rogerson]
1828 Henry Hargreaves, Has. Carr Mill, gentry. [Pigot]
1834 Richard Aspinall is at ‘Magbrook’ [1834 Poor Rate Assessment Tottington-Lower-End]
1841 Richard Aspinall, cotton spinner, listed at Carr Lane. [Pigot & Slater]
1842 The Tithe Map gives more details: Magbrook – spinning mill, gardens & reservoir. Owners: Wm Grant & Bros – occupied by Richard Aspinall [1842 Tithe Map page 9 No:50]
1850 Richard Howarth is listed at Magbrook Mill, Ramsbottom – manufacturer of cotton. [Heap]
1861 Wm. Bramley & Co, cotton spinners & manufacturers are listed at Carr Mill Ramsbottom. [Drake]
1864 William Bramley Cotton Mill Cotton Mill Carr Street – owner William Grant Brothers [1864 Poor Rate Assessment Tottington Lower End PUB 11/4]
1971 Census William Bramley age 65 a widower and spinning manufacturer born Hapton lived with his family at 7 Springwood Street. [1871 Census 3946 folio 98 page 27 Tottington Lower End]. In 1881 he lived with his daughter @ Tanners Oak Barn.
1871 Fletcher & Kay, shuttlemakers & mill furnishers are at Carr Street Mill. [Worrall]
1888 Schofield & Hopkinson, cotton spinners, Carr Mill. John Schofield, cotton Spinner (Schofield & Hopkinson) lived at 9 Regent Street together with Samuel Hopkinson, cotton spinner (Schofield & Hopkinson).
1888 (supplement to 1882) Survey & Valuation List Tottington Lower End PUB8/66 – Bury Archives – Hopkinson & Schofield @ Carr Mill owner Isabella Lawson. Spinning Room 1 storey 332 sq. yds, engine house and power 1 storey 20 sq. yds., and fixed machinery.
Hume Elliot makes reference to this mill: ‘At Carr Mill the Yorkshire men were engaged on woollen fabrics – the newer part now occupied by Messrs James Brooks & Son [Elliot page 122]. James Brooks was at Grove Mill Garden Street in 1888 [Slater].
1908 Carr Mill is marked and named as Carr Mill (cotton) on 1908 map but not found anything relevant in trade section.
1913 There is a photograph in the book ‘Around Ramsbottom’ – Richard Nuttall at Carr Mill – owner’s son’s 21st birthday 17.11.1913. [Around Ramsbottom page 42]
1913 and 1924 William Henry Birtwistle, manufacturing chemist is still at Carr Works. [Kelly]
1924 Richard Nuttall Ltd, cotton goods manufacturer, Carr Street [Kelly ]
1939 map Carr Mill is marked as dis-used.
1940/1950 Main part on Carr Street demolished [information from Janet Smith – her source Stella Slater 2005
c 1963 Mill building on back Carr Street demolished [Information from Janet Smith – her source Beetson 2005]
Farmer Davenport kept chickens in the ruins of the mill. In 1950s Celia Davenport and Norman Hopkins opened up ‘The Old Mill’ with Geoffrey Winterhalter becoming a partner in 1964. (Sorry haven’t made a note of my sourse for this reference)
In a letter from Joe Hitchon of 9 Limefield Brow, Bury dated 8.10.1990 to an RHS member [found in RHS archive in Civic Hall Feb 2009] he states that ‘ The highest part of Carr Mill was Mathers Industrial Spring Works’.
1967 The Old Mill Restaurant which opened in 1967 was not, in fact, on the site of a mill. It was an oil and tallow refinery which operated from about 1880 until 1965 - owned originally by Samuel Porritt and then his step-son William Henry Birtwistle. [Around Ramsbottom page 44]. It was known as Carr Works.
Incidentally William Henry Birtwistle rented a building known as ‘the stove’ on the site of the Higher Mill at Kibboth Crew during the 1880s – in Barrett’s directory 1883 William Henry Birtwistle is listed as oil & tallow refiner Carr Works and in Slater’s Directory 1888 he was listed as a manufacturing chemist – William Henry Birtwistle & Co Carr Works and as Oil & tallow refiners – W H Birtwistle & Co Carr Works, He lived at 19 Ducie Street.
The building at the foot of a deep clough across from Springwood Mill was an oil refinery belonging to William Birtwistle producing tallow for the Porritts. Samuel Porritt was the son of Joseph Porritt – he was the manager here and married William Birtwistle’s widow. He lived at 21 Ducie Street next door to the works. In 1883, Barrett’s Trade Directory he was described as a Rural Sanitary Inspector. After the Second World War the building was used for battery hen rearing and following this a most unlikely development occurred when Geoffrey Winterhalter cleaned and renovated it in the fifties to open as The Old Mill Restaurant. At this time the water from the stream passed inside the reception area and flowed out by the water wheel and duck pond, a novel feature. [ExhibitionText in RHS Archive. Author and dare unknown]
These buildings were taken over and run by a firm called Insulating Sleevings & Tapes Limited although I don’t know when William Henry Birtwistle gave up trading there.
In a letter by Joe Hitchon of 9 Limefield Brow, Bury dated 8.10.1990 to an RHS member he states that ‘The Old Mill Restaurant was a tallow works owned by Birtwistle and Porritt (later used as a poultry battery).
1948 – Large advertisement in Ramsbottom Official Guide for that year – Insulating Sleevings & Tapes Ltd, manufacturers of Electrical Insulating Materials. Carr Mill and Ramsbottom Mill.
1951 In the Ramsbottom Festival Souvenir Handbook there is a short article about a company which operated at Carr Mill. Unfortunately it does not give any dates:
Insulating Sleeves and Tapes Limited – With the inauguration of this firm in Carr Street, an entirely new industry was introduced to Ramsbottom. It set out to manufacture insulating materials for the electrical industry and with an ever increasing demand for its products and a widening of their range it soon became apparent that Carr Mill was inadequate. Larger additional premises were, therefore, sought with the result that a steady influx of raw materials and an expanding efflux of finished insulating materials are now apparent at the Company’s main works in Crow Lane……….