Runcorn's Chatham Mill

Mill buildings photographed in 2010

Note ends of unusual cast iron beams supported on sandstone blocks

on Chester Street, Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester.

Bancks and Co's Plan of Manchester, 1831 shows the mill on the north side of Chester Street, between the mill of John Marsland and Fairweather's cotton mill.

The 1849 O.S. map shows a basically L-shaped building on a square plot, the rest of the plot being otherwise empty apart from a very small building in the centre, at a slight angle to the rest. The longest parts of the building faced Chester Street and Lower Ormond Street.

1882 Advertised for sale: "A freehold plot of land, situate in Chester-street, Ormond-street, Hulme-street, and Lower Chatham-street, in Chorlton-upon-Medlcck, Manchester, with the fire-proof mill, known as Chatham Mill, and the show rooms, offices, boiler house, dyehouse, and other buildings, engine and boilers, shafting, gearing, and other machinery, fixtures and fittings in connexion therewith. Particulars whereof may be had (gratia) of Messrs. Murray, Hutchins, and Stirling, Solicitors, 11, Birchin-lane, London  ; Mr. J. T. Bownass, Solicitor, Windermere; and of the Auctioneer." This property had been part of the estate of J. M. Dunlop

This 1901 photograph shows Chatham Mill in the background, looking NNW from Lower Ormond Street. The streets off to the left are, respectively, Lord Street and James Street, with the Lord Stanley pub on the corner. On the left we see partially demolished back-to-back houses.

Another 1901 photograph shows the mill's Chester Street frontage, and back-to-back houses facing James Street and Chester Street, viewed from Lower Chatham Street. Not far to commute. The taller mill buildings in the distance (to the east) are part of the Oxford Road Twist Company's mills.

Goad's Insurance Plans for 1928 showed that the original buildings facing Chester Street and Lower Ormond Street had survived, and much of the plot was now covered by buildings, mostly used as warehouses, although some clothes making and transfer printing went on. The main occupants were the Dunlop Rubber Co, Wright and Green, and the Salvation Army.

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