Upper Bank Bottom Mill

Upper Bank Bottom Mill also known as ‘Top Bonk’

Upper Bank Bottom Mill drawing

A drawing of Upper Bank Bottom Mill
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This, originally a scribbling and carding mill, was situated on the Wessenden Brook. It was already in existence when the 1801 Township Map was surveyed. An auction catalogue from c1820 described the mill as being
“Three stories high, besides the Attic, 74 Feet 6 Inches in length, and 34 Feet 6 Inches in breadth, with a Fall of 22 Feet 6 Inches on the Wessenden River, the Willow House at the West-end of the Mill, with a Boiler and Steam Pipes, Water Wheel, Going Gear, Dam, Weirs and Water-courses”.

It was again sold at auction and the advertisement in the Leeds Mercury dated 4th October 1851 showed that
“The mill called Upper Mill is worked by a very powerful wheel of modern construction 28 feet 6 inches in diameter by 12 feet wide, with a never-failing supply of water , and about 35 horses power”.

At one time the mill was run by two separate enterprises, Ben Sykes & Son and Talent Fisher but Ben Sykes took over full ownership of both this mill and Lower Bank Bottom. Over the years the mill had been extended and become a producer of woven cloth, not merely a mill which prepared fleeces for spinning into yarn elsewhere and the finishing processes of woven cloth which had been produced by home-based hand loom weavers.

Upper Bank Bottom Mill water wheel

Upper Bank Bottom Mill water wheel during demolition.
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However, Ben Sykes was made bankrupt in 1869 with £30-40,000 liabilities. The 81 year old was forced to sell everything he owned. The auction was to take place at the George Hotel in Huddersfield and was advertised in the Leeds Mercury which described the mill to be
'… three and four storeys high together with the willey room, wheel house, and capital iron wheel having a fall of 27 feet, and a never-failing supply of water for motive power, augmented by storage in a large reservoir, and all that substantial Building called the Weaving and Spinning Mill, three storeys high.

Both mills were sold for £9,000. The mill was demolished by the then owners, Huddersfield Corporation, in 1891 in order to use the site for the building of Butterley Reservoir.