Demolitions: Imposing stone built property C.1920

Above: Examples of Salvageable materials from the impending demolition

Stonewood Co, Lancashire UK

An interesting demolition has come up on the Salvo Demolition site, James Pickles from Stonewood and Co has provided the following brief history and personal anecdote about the old mill, built in remembrance of those who fell during the Great War.

"The building was created for cotton mill workers by mill owner Mr Amos Nelson as a monument to the fallen heroes of WW1. Interestingly it housed a number of evacuees during the Second World War. Mr Nelson obviously had the foresight to keep his workers happy as within the building there was a refectory, a couple of bars, a superb sprung oak dance floor, band stand and stage, card rooms as well as changing rooms for the tennis courts and bowling greens within the grounds

Yes this is an interesting building and one which holds some interesting old memories for me as an eighteen year old being weaned onto the local dark brew ! Attending a seemingly harmless live band event one Saturday night, it quickly became apparent that the locals preferred to box rather than listen to the music. The evening erupted into something resembling a wild west saloon brawl. Chairs and glasses were hurtling through the air as were some of the more diminutive attendees. Eventually the police did arrive and things returned to a kind of normality.

That was back in the mid-eighties when "Jimmy Nelson's" had long seen the last of its mill workers and was now a bar-club hosting small rock and punk bands from the Burnley & Blackburn scene. It has been redundant for the last ten or so years. It is a wonderfully built example of early 20th century mill-town architecture and we are hoping that many if not all of the arches, doorways and window sets can be relocated and incorporated elsewhere."


Salvo Demolitions