Robin Longbottom examines the history of one of the area’s earliest remaining and best-preserved textile mills

BROW End Mill (now converted into three dwellings and known as The Rag Mill) stands by the North Beck at Goose Eye, near Keighley.

It is one of the earliest remaining and best preserved textile mills in the area. Not only does the structure of the original mill survive, but so do the water systems that once provided the power to run its machinery.

The mill was built in 1791 by John Craven, Thomas Brigg and Abraham Shackleton, who were partners at Walk Mill, a successful cotton spinning mill in Keighley. The new mill was built on land owned by Thomas Brigg and was part of his farm at Brow End.

The mill had seven bays for cotton spinning frames that are indicated by the seven windows along the central part of the present building. Some years after it was built, a cottage, for a manager, was added to the gable nearest to Goose Eye and later a wheelhouse was added to the other gable to protect the waterwheel from the weather.

The waterwheel was originally powered from a small mill pond in what is now the garden of number 3 The Rag Mill. The pond was fed by water brought along a goit from the impressive four-step weir some 80 yards upstream. However, this supply proved to be too small to run the mill continually throughout the year, particularly during dry summer months. It was a serious miscalculation by the partners and Craven and Shackleton soon pulled out of the venture.

Despite the water problems, Thomas Brigg persevered and was fortunate to have substantial estates at Guardhouse in Keighley and at Laycock that enabled him to survive hard times. After he died in 1822 his son John took the mill. He turned it over to spinning worsted yarn and set his mind to resolving the water issue. He proved to be an astute businessman and in 1828 he negotiated an agreement with Lord George Cavendish of Keighley to do a land exchange. Cavendish owned Todley Hall Farm in Laycock, whose fields extended to the beck upstream from Brigg’s mill. On his part Brigg owned Calversyke Farm, part of his Guardhouse estate, in Keighley and his fields were adjacent to the North Beck and land owned by Cavendish. When the exchange was concluded it enabled Cavendish to build North Beck Mill in Keighley and Brigg to create a much bigger pond upstream from his mill.

The water for Brigg’s new pond (known locally as Teapot Dam) came from two sources. The first was from the North Beck and the second from a tributary, Newsholme Beck. However, Newsholme Beck was at the other side of the valley and entered the North Beck lower than the mill pond. Therefore, to abstract water from the beck, Brigg built a weir upstream and brought the water to the pond along an aqueduct that ran in an underground conduit and crossed the North Beck in a channel made from iron plates. Some years later his supply was again improved when the ‘Big Dam’ (now Keighley Reservoir) was built on Keighley Moor to provide water to mills along the North Beck in times of shortage.

The land exchange not only enabled John Brigg to improve his reserve of water but the new pond increased the fall and enabled him to install a bigger and more powerful waterwheel. The new wheel was enclosed in the wheelhouse on the gable and now forms part of number 3 The Rag Mill.

After the death of John Brigg, his sons relocated the business to Calversyke Mill in Keighley and sold Brow End to the Turkey Mill at Goose Eye. It was then used to sort rags for paper making.