GROVE MILL
Garden Street, Ramsbottom – corner of Athol Street.
1871 Listed in the ‘Date of Build’ Register: 1871 GRE Lease 94 Henry Horne.
1876 Listed in the Valuation List for TLE as ‘Warehouse’ Garden Street owned by Hugh Horne - premises empty. [PUB8/44 1876 - Bury Archives]
1883 Hugh Horne, cotton spinner Grove Mill lived at Longfield Terrace. [Barrett] In 1888 he lived at 80 Bolton Road West. [Slaters]
1883 – John Lobley, cotton manufacturer, Grove Mill [ Barrett] He lived at Carlton Terrace.
1887 – Multiple occupancy: [Worrall]
- Duckworth & Parkinson – Grove Mill – towels, twills and fancy cloth – 65 looms. [Worrall]
- James Brooks – Grove Mill – twists – 2,000 spindles.
1888 – Multiple occupancy: [Slater]
- James Brooks, manufacturer of sail cloth, Grove Mill, Garden Street. He lived at 39 Callender Street.
- James Cryer & Co, cotton spinners, Grove Mill, Garden Street (He lived at 7 St Pauls Place)
- Duckworth & Parkinson, towel manufacturers, Grove Mill. (Jonathan Duckworth -towel manufacturer at Duckworth & Parkinson, lived at 18 Crow Lane)
- In the ‘streets’ section of this Directory Lawrence Stead & Brothers are listed on Garden Street.
1893 O/S map the site is marked as ‘CARR SPRING WORKS’.
1892 Rate Assessment Book [PUB/11/30] lists:
- Robert Mather(?) occupier – Eliza Pickup owner – Spring Works, Garden Street
- Duckworth Bros occupiers – Eliza Pickup owner – Spring Works, Garden Street.
On 1908 and 1939 maps it is marked and named as Grove Mill (cotton).I haven’t found any more information as to who occupied the mill between 1900 – 1950. I was given some information relating to John Wood’s Engineers of Garden Mill from Kate Slingsby which states that Woods’ old pattern shop, pattern store, engineer’s stores and the stable were across the road, occupying another large site and I wonder if this refers to the Grove Mill site.
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’. Maybe they operated on both sites.
He also refers to ‘Kay Hargreaves at Garden Mill - fancy cloths. Garden Mill opposite the foundry has gone. I worked as a half-timer 12 years old. My mother was a weaver there before she married. I recall her saying she could earn 28 shillings a week and that her father who also worked there kept one loom for the Church Inn. The mill, a fancy cloth place, was owned by Mr Kay Hargreaves. He had those two large stone built house built for his 2 daughters in Bury New Road. A nice employer. He went into liquidation in the 1920s.’
[note from Kath - Garden Mill was where the foundry was so I think he is referring to Grove Mill which Was opposite the foundry (John Woods]
1909 Directory [Kelly] lists Kay Hargreaves & Co., cotton manufacturers at Garden Street. He lived at Irwell View.
1910 Occupier Kay Hargreaves. Owner Exors.Eliza Pickup. Weaving shed, Garden Street. [Valuation List PUB 8/164 Bury Archives]
1910 Robert Mather, Spring Works Garden Street, owned by Exors of Eliza Pickup. [Valuation List PUB 8/164 Bury Archives]
1913 Kelly – Kay Hargreaves & Co cotton manufacturers, Garden Street.
1917 Occupier Robert Mather. Owner Kay Hargreaves. Description: Spring Works @ Grove Mill Garden Street. [Valuation List Supplementary PUB 8/164 Bury Archives]
1924 Kay Hargreaves & Co, Cotton manufacturers, Garden Street [Kelly]
On an undated map in Ramsbottom Library marked ‘about 1950’ this site is marked as ‘works’.
This mill is a bit of a mystery – I don’t understand why it is named as Carr Spring Works on the 1893 map .To add to the confusion, Grove Towel Company operated at Waterside Mill mid 20th century.
Demolished about 1950 [Information from Janet Smith – her source Peter Standring 2005]
2008 This site is now occupied by a modern apartment block.
In 1881 Kay Hargreaves age 24 a power loom overlooker, cotton, born Darcy Lever lived at 5 Morris Green Middle Hulton Bolton with wife Alice and baby daughter.