Time Team - Arkwright's Mill, NCP Car Park, Miller Street, Manchester - Archaeological Evaluation and Assessment of Results

Wessex Archaeology

The primary aim of the evaluation was to identify the position of the original mill and the different phases of building and alterations which occurred during its lifetime, and to establish the position of major features such as the mill wheel pit. The project also aimed to investigate the nature of the housing which existed along the south side of Angel Street to the north of the mill building.

The evaluation successfully located the main mill building and enabled the identification of features associated with the original 1780-82 construction by Richard Arkwright. A further five phases of alterations were identified, associated with the introduction of new technologies, the replacement of failed machinery with old tried and tested methods, and rebuilding following a devastating fire in 1854. The final phase was associated with the use of the mill prior to its destruction during the Blitz in 1940.

Historical documentation had suggested that the mill was widened by a distance of 3m from 9m to 12m following the rebuilding in 1854, but the evaluation was able to show that no widening had taken place and that the original 1780s mill had been 12m wide and not the 9m originally thought.

The evaluation also investigated one of the small cellar dwellings occupied to the north of the mill. It was clear that what had once been a small, two-roomed dwelling had been divided into two separate one-room dwellings, most probably in the mid 19th century, a process seen across Manchester at this time to accommodate the increasing migration of people to work in the booming cotton mill industry.