Benyon, Benyon and Bage

of Ditherington Flax Mill, Shrewsbury

The mill was built for John Marshall of Leeds, Thomas Benyon, and Benjamin Benyon. The architect, Charles Bage, was also a partner in the venture

1803/4 Drawing of a Boulton and Watt engine for the mill

1804 This partnership was dissolved with the mill being retained by John Marshall, who paid off his partners on the basis that it was worth £64,000. The other partners built themselves another mill nearby. These two flax mills provided the 'chief manufacture' of Shrewsbury (according to an 1851 directory).

1805 Partnership changed. '...the Copartnership in the Business of Flax-Spinners and Linen Manufacturers, carried on at Leeds, in the County of York, by John Marshall, Thomas Benyon, and Benjamin Benyon, under the Firm of Marshall and Benyons, and at Shrewsbury, in the County of Salop, by the said John, Marshall, Thomas Benyon and Benjamin Benyon, and Charles Bage, under the Firm of Benyons, Marshall, and Bage, was dissolved...'

1815 Partnership change. '...the Partnership heretofore subsisting between us the undersigned, Thomas Benyon, Benjamin Benyon, and Charles Bage, under the firm of Benyon, Benyon, and Bage, as Linen-Manufacturers, in Leeds, in the County of York, and Shrewsbury, in the County of Salop, is this day dissolved, so far as concerns the said Charles Bage...'<ref>The London Gazette Publication date:30 September 1815 Issue:17066 Page:2008

1886 The mill closed and was sold (with a bleach yard at Hanwood for £3,000. The building was then converted to a maltings (hence its more commonly-used local name), and as a consequence many windows were bricked up