Bliss Tweed Mill England, UK

Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire — Bliss Mill The Bliss Valley Tweed Mill was built to resemble a great house in a park and was far removed from the simplicity of early Victorian industrial architecture. A chimney stack rises from a domed tower and is dated 1872. The architect was George Woodhouse from Lancashire, who specialised in the design of mills and factories. Image credit: John Ward

Description

Listed Building Description

Text courtesy of Historic England. © Crown Copyright, reprinted under the Open Government License.

SP 3026-3126 CHIPPING NORTON

1169/4/90 Bliss Tweed Mill

3.7.1980 II*

Tweed cloth mill; converted into apartments. 1872, as dated below clock on the circular chimney stack, by George Woodhouse, a Lancashire architect specialising in mill structures. Bliss Mill is an exceptional design, rivalling Lister Mills, Bradford and the earlier ones at Saltaire. Built of local limestone, the elevations of the spinning mill proper, of 5 storeys, one treated in a manner that owes much to a Barry-type conception of the country house, with square belvedere staircase towers to the corners segmented by balustraded parapets with pairs of urn finials. The top storey windows have twin arcaded lights. The dominating feature is the chimney stack rising from an engaged circular tower, a sophisticated aesthetic solution to a functional requirement, with a ribbed leaded dome providing the transition to the lofty Tuscan order shaft of the stack proper. The multi-gabled weaving shed adjoins. The internal construction is of cast iron columns supporting transverse beams bearing the longitudinal segmental brick vaults which spring from slender I section girders. A remarkable opulent design in a park-like setting.

Listing NGR: SP3043426696