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There is some evidence (from old documents and maps) to suggest that there was an iron slitting mill at Stanley Bank in the late 18th century and that this was converted to a corn mill in the early to mid-19th century, before being demolished (probably around 1910) leaving behind few remains that can be easily seen.
The main aim of the project was to find and record any remains of the slitting mill. The mill was used to manufacture iron rods from iron bars which were being produced locally at Carr Mill a few kilometres to the north.
Earlier archaeological work at Stanley Bank, which took place in 1982 and 1983, found a wheel pit where a wooden water wheel would have operated. However, at this time we believe that slitting mills would usually have had at least two water wheels to power their machinery. One of the main aims of the archaeological surveys in 2006, 2007 and 2008 was therefore to find and investigate the slitting mill’s second wheel pit.
These surveys did identify the place where a second water wheel would have operated. This was on the opposite (south) side of the slitting mill building. They also found that this second wheel pit had probably been filled in when the mill was converted from slitting to corn at some time between 1800 and 1824. This work also found that the slitting mill may have had not two, but three water wheels (two on the north side and one on the south side) whereas the corn mill had only one. By careful examination of the stone blocks against which the wheels would have rubbed when working, it was also possible to estimate their size.
The final stages of the project have been to collate all the evidence available so far and to create a 3D model of the site ‘reconstructing’ first the slitting mill and then the corn mill to illustrate what Stanley Bank might have looked like as a busy centre of industry.
Most of the evidence found tells about the first mill at Stanley Bank which was used to make iron rods. Much less has been found so far that gives us information about the later corn mill. When the mills were demolished much of the building material seems to have been removed and the site was covered by a thick layer of clay and waste materials.
It is important to remember that there may be other evidence buried at the site as there are still areas that have not been investigated. Further archaeological surveys will hopefully provide more information about other possible buildings and the lives of those who worked and lived there in the past. Historical records may also provide further clues, but so far no drawings, paintings or photographs have been found of either mill.
The archaeological survey, interpretation and restoration work that has been undertaken at Stanley Bank aims to make the site and its heritage accessible to local residents and visitors who are interested in St Helens’ industrial history and its wider significance. The slitting mill at Stanley Bank and similar sites were important in the development and spread of industry across the region. However, as the region has changed, evidence of the area’s past industry and how and where people lived has often been lost. The Stanley Bank project offers a unique window on the past as there are now no standing iron slitting mills remaining in Britain.
The area now appears to be largely rural with little industry and extensive housing. However, Stanley Bank was one of the key areas of the industrial development of St Helens and in the past the Sankey Canal at Stanley Bank was the focus for a range of industry including iron slitting, copper working and the transport of coal mined locally.
When the Blackbrook extension was added to the Sankey Canal (around 1770) this was an important event in the development of the area’s industry and allowed coal to be more quickly and cheaply exported to places like the busy port of Liverpool and Cheshire where it was used in the salt industry.
The Stanley Copper Works was established by Thomas Patten (from Warrington) in 1772 and was superseded by the Stanley Smelting Company in 1785. Although the exact location of the copper works is not known, historical documents suggest that some 30 tons of copper per week were cast into brass and copper ingots for the East India trade. The source of the copper ore is thought to have been the mines on Parys Mountain in Anglesey. The precise location of the copper works is still not clear, but it is known to have been close to the iron slitting mill and may have been situated on the track road to Stanley Bank Farm. Copper production had ceased by 1815.
The process of iron slitting (cutting iron up into strips) is thought to have arrived in Britain in the sixteenth century. The Stanley Iron Slitting Mill was established in 1773 by partnership consisting of Alexander Chorley, Thomas Leech, John Postlethwaite and John Rigby to slit iron from the furnaces at Carr Mill to the north of Stanley Bank. The iron was transported to Stanley Bank from Carr Mill along a narrow channel that can still be seen where it joins the dam. There must therefore have been some means of unloading the boats and carrying the iron down to the mill from the pond, but we have no evidence to suggest what this structure may have looked like.
Alexander Chorley is believed to have come from Warrington and he may have known the owner of another local slitting mill (Thomas Titley) at Lymm in Cheshire. The Stanley Bank slitting mill does not appear to have been successful, and in just over a decade in 1784 the mill was offered for sale. (The advertisement for the sale provides some information about what buildings may have been at Stanley Bank at the time. However, as it also included Carr Mill what exactly was present at Stanley Bank is not clear. Nevertheless, warehouses, housing and gardens are mentioned). Around this time there also seems to have been a fall in the demand for the products made by the slitting mill as technology changed. In 1785 John Rigby died and Alexander Chorley was made bankrupt. He then became the manager of the copper works.
The slitting mill was taken over in 1800 by two Liverpool merchants (John Weston and William Blocklebank) and an iron slitter (James Harriman). The lease for the mill mentions shops, warehouses, wheels and other items of equipment implying that the mill was a substantial operation at this time.
Unfortunately, the remaining history of the site is rather unclear, but sometime between 1800 and 1824 it was converted to a corn mill. This was closed between 1900 and 1911 and then demolished. However, many of the building outlines visible on the site today relate to this part of its history.
Before the start of the project only the stubs of walls of the mill building could be seen above ground. The clearest evidence of the site’s history was the dam wall, which had also been damaged and partly rebuilt. At the start of the project much of the area had been repeatedly vandalised and the site was overgrown with vegetation
A series of archaeological digs involving volunteers from the community has taken place at Stanley Bank. A small part of the slitting mill site was excavated in 1982-3 as part of a Manpower Services Commission funded Community Programme, but unfortunately only a partial record of the excavation survives. Most of the detailed archaeological work at the site took place between 2006 and 2008 led by the National Museums Liverpool Field Archaeology Unit. Trial trenches were dug in the summer months of 2006 and 2007 with a larger survey in August 2008. All the archaeological, historical and other sources of information have been collated as a Watching Brief to give an overview of the site
In addition to archaeological surveys the site has also been investigated using geophysical techniques. In 2006 gradiometer and resistivity surveys were carried out by Stratascan Ltd and both found anomalies that may show the outline of the buildings that used to be present. However, the findings of these two techniques did not correspond well with each other and seemed to be complicated by the materials that were deposited on the site e.g., iron-rich deposits and a thick layer of clay. Ground penetrating radar (GPR) was also tested, but did not manage to clearly identify the buried remains of the buildings
The site has also been scanned using laser based equipment so that any remains above the ground surface were accurately mapped. This survey was then linked to computer modelling and has allowed a 3D “virtual mill” to be created illustrating what we think the site may have looked like in the past. This technique has been used at other archaeological and heritage sites, but here its use is unique as there is so little surface evidence to work from.
Other sources of information include historical maps of the area which show the site and how the area around it has changed. We also have a newspaper advert dated 1784 (the year in which the mill was put up for sale) which tells us that there were a number of houses and warehousing located at Stanley Bank at this time. A number of artefacts were also found during the archaeological surveys of the site, but have yet to be fully investigated. These were mainly 19th and 20th century pottery and clay tobacco pipe fragments.
The slitting mill was established in 1773 with two wheel pits situated on either side (north and south) of the slitting and rolling area which would have measured approximately 14 x 4 m. The southern wheel pit contained a single water wheel and the northern wheel pit contained two water wheels.
No direct evidence was found for the location of a furnace or hearth, though there are some clues (in the form of apparently heated bricks) that it was located at the eastern end of the building, close to the dam wall.
The northern wheel pit has been investigated in most detail. It is roughly ‘bottle’ shaped in plan with a width of 2 m at the western end and 2.30 m at the eastern end (closest to the dam wall). The southern wall of the wheel pit is straight for its full length, the narrowing being caused by a pronounced kink in the northern wall that is thought to relate to the partial rebuilding of these walls.
At the time of the slitting mill both walls are thought to have been constructed of substantial red sandstone blocks. Other materials were also seen during the excavation and would appear to be linked to alterations to the wheel pit made at the time of the mill’s conversion from iron slitting to corn milling. The sandstone blocks have been scarred by the action of the water wheel which also suggests that the channel taking water away from the wheel (the tail race) was probably opened (and not covered over as it is now) at the time of the slitting mill.
Other markings were also found on the walls of the wheel pit e.g., the date ‘1773’. This is an important piece of evidence. It is not thought to have been a formal ‘date stone’ (as you might find on a building over a door or somewhere else prominent), but would have been hidden by the water wheel. The carving is a little clumsy and it is thought that it might have been a piece of graffiti produced by one of the stone mason’s who built the wheel pit. Other carvings or stone marks (symbols) were also found. At least one is the same as a mark recorded at another local mill site (Sefton Mill) build around the same time, which suggests that at least some of the masons may have worked on both sites.
The scars on the northern wheel pit walls from the western water wheel (furthest away from the dam wall) allow its diameter to be estimated at c. 4.4 to 4.8 m with an axle height about 0.90 m above ground level. It is estimated that this size of wheel would probably have generated 4 to 10 horse power, which is comparable to other water powered industrial sites of this period. Scarring at the eastern end of the northern wheel pit was also seen, but is thought to have been made after the conversion to a corn mill.
There is little or no further evidence of the construction and operation of the water wheels as the floor of the slitting mill would have been removed when it was converted to a corn mill. Other evidence suggests that the water wheel and axels are likely to have been made mainly of wood, but at this time cast iron axels had started to be used. The water wheels were fed with water from above and were therefore overshot or pitchback.
It is thought that the southern wheel pit contained only one water wheel, rather than the two that ran in the northern wheel pit, and that this was only used when the site was a slitting mill. Both walls of this wheel pit were constructed in red sandstone blocks, but the upper two or three courses were built of hand-made red bricks. It is likely that the brick courses represent rebuilding during conversion to a corn mill when this wheel pit was filled in.
Scars from the action of the water wheel were also found on the walls in this wheel pit allowing the size of the wheel to be estimated as 4-5m in diameter sitting with its axel about 0.5 to 1m above the present ground level. Mason’s marks were also found that seemed to match those found in the northern wheel pit. Unfortunately, flooding due to heavy rain during the archaeological survey limited the extent of the investigation that could be safely undertaken in the southern wheel pit.
We know very little about the interior of the slitting mill, although there are some historical illustrations that provide an idea of the machinery involved in slitting iron bars to make rods. This process used large rollers and cutters and a furnace to heat iron bars. The water wheels were used to power rollers that flattened the bars and then cut (or slit) them into narrower strips. At other slitting mill sites there are records to show that these were used in nail and wire making or perhaps to form iron hoops for barrels. One of the water wheel may also have been used to power bellows for the furnace. We do not know exactly where the furnace was located in the Stanley bank slitting mill, but there are clues to suggest that it sat at the end of the building closest to the dam wall.
As an industrial building the slitting mill is likely to have been constructed of local materials. The remains of the walls are made of red sandstone blocks. Other slitting mills are single storey and the roof is likely to have used local sandstone flags. There are a few historical documents that describe the site when it was in use. They mention warehouses and housing so it is likely that there would have been other buildings around the mill for storage, stabling pack animals, and other uses.
The exact date at which slitting and rolling stopped at Stanley Bank is not clear; it was for sale as a slitting mill in 1800, but historical documents show it was in use as a corn mill in 1824.
Following the conversion to a corn mill the southern water wheel was removed and the wheel pit filled in. In the northern wheel pit the western water wheel was removed and this section of the wheel pit capped by a brick vault. The eastern end was rebuilt and possibly extended. The tail race (the channel taking water away from the water wheel) was covered over, although the tail race from the southern water wheel may not have previously been open.
It is thought that the corn mill was built on top of some of the foundations of the slitting mill, but it seems that the earlier mill was demolished and the stone removed. The corn mill is thought to have been made of hand made bricks and is likely to have been two or three storeys in height if it were similar to other corn mills at the time. Historical maps show us that there would also have been other buildings around the mill for housing and storage.
Grindstones have been found on the site and also a special tile that is thought to have formed part of a drying floor in one of the buildings. This floor allowed a through flow of air in order to dry out the grain.
The site takes advantage of a natural and relatively straight valley that runs approximately east to west. The bank dammed the river, storing water to provide a source of energy to power the machinery initially in the slitting and later in the corn mill.
Currently the dam wall has a large v-shaped notch in it that allows the river to flow through. The edges of this gap have been reinforced with mesh baskets filled with rocks to prevent any movement of the river channel which would cause damage to the site. Sections of the wall are now grass covered, but there are also sections of brick and stone. Over the years the bank has probably been partly rebuilt and reinforced so that its original appearance is no longer certain. However, we think that the base of the dam wall and the parts where water was taken out of the pond and over the water wheels would have been constructed of sandstone blocks which can still be seen in places.
The mill pond is now relatively shallow due to the break in the dam wall and large areas have silted up allowing plants to replace open water. When the mill pond was in active use it would have been important to keep the pond clear of silt and vegetation which would have reduced water storage. The water level would also have changed regularly as water was drained off to power the water wheels. Today the site is surrounded by woodland, and old maps of the area show that the land around the pond has been used for woodland for hundreds of years. The area would have been largely agricultural with small settlements and individual farms.
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