in Ancoats, Manchester
General
Redhill Street, formerly Union Street, runs alongside the Rochdale Canal, and connects Great Ancoats Street with New Union Street.
Union/Redhill Street was distinguished by the looming presence of a group of large cotton mills. They came to be icons of industrial Manchester, attracting the attention of artists and foreign visitors.
Alexis de Tocqueville, described the McConnel and Kennedy mills in 1835 as "...a place where some 1500 workers, labouring 69 hours a week, with an average wage of 11 shillings, and where three-quarters of the workers are women and children". Eight storeys high.[1]
Several of the large mill buildings on Redhill and adjacent streets have survived, to be converted into flats and business premises.
The main mills on Union Street were originally owned by McConnel and Kennedy and A. and G. Murray.
The mills in sequence
Note: Much of the following information is drawn from A & G Murray and the Cotton Mills of Manchester [2] and from Cotton Mills in Greater Manchester[3]
McConnel and Kennedy
Heading north east along Union/Redhill Street from Great Bridgewater Street, the first mill was the large Long Mill, built 1801-6. It ran the full length of Pickford Street and ended at Union Street and Jersey Street. Initially the mill building occupied half of the plot of land, with Henry Street on the north eastern side, although the mill had come to occupy most of the plot by the time the 1849 O.S. Town Plan was surveyed. The Green Dragon Inn (eventually owned by McConnel and Kennedy) occupied the northern corner.
The next block originally contained Old Mill (1797) which faced Union Street and was bounded by Henry Street on the west and Cotton Street on the east.
Next came a large complex of mill buildings, collectively known as Sedgwick Mill, with the frontage on Union street and bounded on the west and east by Cotton Street and Murray Street. As built in 1818-20 there were four main mills set at various angles to each other, with a central courtyard. The building facing Union Street was called the Main Block. north west of this was the West Wing, North Block was opposite the Main Block, while the East Wing faced onto Murray Street. The 1849 Town Plan shows densely-packed houses, the Royal Oak pub, and Maria Street, all occupying the land to the north of the Sedgwick group. In 1868 the land immediately south of Maria Street was taken over for Sedgwick New Mill. By 1912 the remainder of the land, apart from the Royal Oak, had been taken over for McConnel and Kennedy's Paragon Mill and Carding Shed.
Going back to Old Mill, Cotton Street and Sedgwick Mill, Old Mill was demolished and Royal Mill built in its place in 1912. Cotton Street was subsumed in the buildings, but survives as a passageway. The Cotton Street portal on Union/Redhill Street now serves as the main entrance to the accommodation within, and the courtyard has been glazed to form an atrium.
A. and G. Murray Mills
Murrays' Mills occupy the next block, separated from the Sedgwick Mills by Murray Street. The whole of the block bounded by Murray Street, Union Street, Jersey Street and Bengal Street was occupied by A. and G. Murray. The part facing Union/Redhill Street is called Old Mill on the 1849 O.S. Town Plan, but Old Mill, built in 1798, actually occupied only the western half of the present building on Union Street, while the eastern half, called Decker Mill, was built in 1801-2.
'New Mill' was built at the north end of the plot in 1804-6, facing Jersey Street. The Murray Street Block and Bengal Street Block were added in 1805-6. On completion, these buildings enclosed a central courtyard, with the main gated entrance and a narrower gated entrance, both on Murray Street. Interestingly, canal barges could access a basin with the courtyard in a tunnel passing under Union Street and Bengal Street. The 1849 O.S. Town Plan shows two coal wharves on this basin. each adjacent to an engine house.
On the eastern side of Bengal Street were some more mill buildings. At the corner of Bengal and Union Street a small existing factory was occupied by James Murray in 1820. This was rebuilt in 1842 as a doubling mill. A small block bounded by Bengal Street, Jersey Street and Gas Street housed 'Little Mill' (c.1819) and a gasometer house. The site was shared with a row of terraced houses on Gas Street (which ran between Bengal and German Street, and several other buildings, including the Beehive pub, but the site was taken over by 'New Little Mill' in 1908-9. A 'Fire Proof Mill' was built in 1842, facing Bengal Street.
The buildings either side of Bengal Street were connected by four tunnels which passed under the road.
Beyond Redhill Street
Redhill Street ended where it met Great Ancoats Street, but the Rochdale Canal continued south westwards under Great Ancoats Street, where it met Brownsfield Mill, after which the canal spread out to provide an extensive system of basins and wharves.
In the opposite direction, heading north eastwards, Redhill Street becomes New Union Street, changing to the opposite side of the canal at Union Street Bridge. Factories and mills continued along the canal. Next to Murrays' mills, the 1849 Town Plan shows the British and Foreign Flint Glass Works, then Jersey Street Mills, followed by a series of five large mills on the north side of the canal.