Heritage at Risk Top 10 – Following on from last month’s brief update on 40 and 42 The Calls (formerly Fletland Mills), we are continuing will the mill theme. This month we are focusing on Abbey Mills, located in the Kirkstall area of Leeds.
Abbey Mills is a Grade II listed complex of buildings on Abbey Road near the junction with Bridge Road in Kirkstall. It was mostly built in the early nineteenth century, with later additions and alterations in both the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The site was originally part of the lands of Kirkstall Abbey and much earlier buildings on the same site had been constructed by the monks, including the goit (mill race) to serve what was then their corn mill.
Unfortunately, the original buildings were destroyed by fire in 1799, but some remaining masonry was incorporated into the new buildings constructed from the 1820s. The new buildings were used as a corn and oil mill, with other parts used for the production of woollen cloth.
The new buildings are predominately stone with slate roofs. Most visible is the two-storey frontage to Abbey Road with a blocked round archway entrance. From the current entrance on Abbey Road to across the yard you can see a four-storey mill block which leads to the goit and is linked to the main four-storey mill which bridges the goit and adjoins a large stone platform.
All of the site is currently inaccessible, but a public footpath off Bridge Road (near to the Kirkstall Bridge Shopping Park) follows the line of the goit, winding towards Kirkstall Abbey, giving glimpses of the main building and the platform beyond.
In 1961 Leeds City Council acquired the site, with the buildings subsequently divided into a variety of light industrial units. In 2023 the site was sold freehold by the Council at an auction but has remained unused since.
The site is now up for sale once again. The agent, Nabarro McAllister, describes the property as ‘in need of significant modernisation and improvement’ with ‘potential for residential conversion and other uses’. All subject to planning and listed building consent, of course!
They have had expressions of interest with viewings, but no formal offers have yet been made, and it remains on the market.
From what can be seen, the buildings appear reasonably secure, with many boarded up windows, but the site will remain on our ‘At Risk List’ until there is a new owner and, at least essential improvement works have been undertaken to bring the buildings back into use.
