Bents Mill, (1799) near Harden

Gelatine silver print entitled 'Bents Mill, near Harden' by Ian Beesley. Produced for the commission `Through the Mill:, The Story of Yorkshire Wool in Photographs'. 1985-1987'.

This water-powered spinning mill is one of five spinning mills built on this stretch of the beck at Harden in the last decade of the eighteenth century. Adjacent to it was Hallas Bridge Mill, another 'undershot' water-wheel mill of the same period. Initially they were built to manufacture cotton goods but converted to the production of worsted yarn after the Napoleonic Wars. The water-wheels have been removed but the mill dams survive.