Portland Mill

Portland Mill in Brook Street East is one of Ashton's surviving cotton mills. The building that stands today was a spinning block built in 1850 as an extension to an earlier mill that was built in 1824.

In 1884 there were 50,000 spindles in operation at Portland Mills. The mills later passed into the ownership of Whittakers of Hurst until production ceased in 1903. The original mill has now gone but the second (the one in the picture) still stands as a magnificent building, although no longer used for textile production.

See Google Aerial View of this location.