A visit to the Thwaite Mills Industrial Museum near Leeds
Thwaite Mills was established by the Aire & Calder Navigation in 1823 on the site of an earlier Fulling Mill dating back to 1641. The mill was leased to many different companies over the years and produced many different materials. It is particularly noted for its production of pottery glaze from ground flint and later putty from ground chalk. The mill was water powered and remained so for over 150 years of operation. It would have had a steam engine as a standby for times of low water pressure at one time. In later years a couple of diesel engines provided additional power to that of the water wheels that drove everything from the crushing mills to the workshop machinery via line shafts across the site.
The mill was used with little modernisation until the 1975 when storm damage to the weir put it out of action. Being a time capsule of 19th Century industry it became a museum. Unfortunately council cutbacks have resulted in the council's decision to terminate the lease of the site and close the museum to the public on the Easter weekend of 2024. The lease of the site will return to the Canal & Rivers Trust, the successor to the canal company that built it. More about the history of the mill can be found in this article in South Leeds Life - Part 1 Part 2.
Below - The main mill building seen from the weir.
After entering through the shop and ticket office the first part of the complex visited is Thwaite House, the residence of the mill owner and office for the mill.
Below - Map of the site on one of the information boards.
Below - Some of the domestic features of Thwaite House
Below - The writing desk with volumes of various ledgers nearby where the business of the mill was handled.
Below - The canal wharf on the Aire & Calder Navigation to the south of the mill. Mooring posts were also provided above the weir on the River Aire to the north of the mill, though these were probably used by boats for the coal staith from Waterloo Colliery. The steam derrick was built by Butters of Glasgow, which seams surprising given how many steam crane makers were located nearby. It replaced an earlier machine in the 1940s.
Below - The warehouse and drying shed.
Below - Information board on the warehouse & drying shed.
Below - Flues through the drying shed.
Below - The mill building on the left and workshop on the right.
Below - The waterwheel and pans. The mill wet ground the stone and these pans would have been filled with slurry which would have been drained of excess water and dried in the drying shed shown earlier.
Below - The pans and one of the troughs for the slurry.
Below - The wet grinding process was replaced by dry grinding in the Raymond Mill. Wet grinding kept the dust down where as the Raymond Mill was an enclosed unit.
Below - A Marshall diesel engine drove the Raymond Mill.
Below - The water wheel again with a wagon hoist that would raise the ground stone to the top of the mill building.
Below - Line shafts that distributed the power from the waterwheel around the building and to the nearby workshop.
Below - One of the sets of crushing wheels.
Below - One of the crushing machines. It is interesting that the word "Patent" has clearly been ground off the machine. Presumably Blakes weren't granted their patent after all.
Below - A Petter McLaren engine provided additional power in the event of low water pressure.
Below - Next to the mill building the workshop was equipped to undertake all manner of work on the mill's machinery. The workshop had it's own blacksmith's forge
Below - A winch off one of the sluices on the weir in the workshop.
Below - A large lathe in the workshop.
Below - A smaller lathe. These machines were all driven by a line shaft from the adjacent mill building.
Below - Another smaller lathe still for turning smaller parts.
Below - A somewhat cluttered workbench.
Below - Returning to the mill building, this peg board was used to drain the excess water off the slurry as the ground stone settled in the pans inside the building.
Below - The drying kilns used to burn the flint to soften it before crushing.
Below - Information board in the drying kilns
Below - Tins of putty in a storage area in the mill building.
Below - Going up to the top floor of the mill building, a conveyor belt.
Below - The top of the Raymond Mill.
Below - The top of the earlier wagon hoist and a wagon, the wagon took blocks of chalk slurry to further drying racks in the roof of the building.
Below - Drying racks for the blocks of ground chalk.
A hoist to lift bags of chalk to the top of the building.
Below - A water vat on the middle floor.
A wagon hoist to bring corves of stone up to feed in to the cruschers.
Below - Looking down to two of the sets of crushing wheels on the floor below.
The water and stone on the middle floor to feed in to the crushers below.
Below - On the middle floor, part of the Raymond Mill.
Below - Stairs down to the ground floor.
Below - Museum displays explaining the mill.
Below - An American built International tractor.
Below - Another small stone crusher.
Below - Built a distance from the mill was the rubber plant which melted and mixed rubber with linseed oil which would then be mixed with the chalk to produce putty. The process was highly flammable and strong smelling, hence the distance from the mill building.
Below - Information board on the rubber plant.
Below - The former stable block.
Below - The stable block and mill buildiing in the background.
