The Hotspur Press
Cambridge Street, Manchester
Plenty of info online but I’ve lifted a few key paragraphs courtesy of Dani Cole’s The Mill…
Originally built on the bank of the River Medlock in 1801, it was soon dwarfed by Birley’s Cotton Mill and Marsland’s Cotton Mill – two enormous mills that later became known as Chorlton Mills. In the early nineteenth century, this stretch of Chorlton-on-Medlock was a sight to behold: one of the engine rooms of the city’s industry, thronging with workers, vehicles and mess. In the 1830s, more than 2,000 people worked at Birley’s complex alone, suggesting it was the largest mill in Manchester. Three of the mills on Cambridge Street were connected by tram tunnels to allow them to move material between buildings unimpeded by the crowds outside.
The building now call Hotspur Press was the largest structure in the Medlock Mills complex, which was owned by a cotton baron called John Fairweather, and then by a series of his heirs in the following decades.
According to a map published in 1888, the building had by this point ended the first phase of its life making cotton, and was now a printing works, owned by the Percy Brothers Ltd. A brass sign bearing that company name is still in place next to one of the building’s doors.
It has been suggested that the name ‘Hotspur Press’ has connections with the popular boys’ comic the Hotspur, which ran from 1933 to 1959 and Henry Percy (‘Harry Hotspur’), the medieval knight who was the son of the 1st Earl of Northumberland during the Hundred Years’ War. Sadly, the former of these is not true, and the latter remains conjecture.
Wasn’t sure this place was still standing but apparently it’s been bought and is going to be redeveloped into even more trendy apartments.
The Hotspur Press
Cambridge Street, Manchester
Plenty of info online but I’ve lifted a few key paragraphs courtesy of Dani Cole’s The Mill…
Originally built on the bank of the River Medlock in 1801, it was soon dwarfed by Birley’s Cotton Mill and Marsland’s Cotton Mill – two enormous mills that later became known as Chorlton Mills. In the early nineteenth century, this stretch of Chorlton-on-Medlock was a sight to behold: one of the engine rooms of the city’s industry, thronging with workers, vehicles and mess. In the 1830s, more than 2,000 people worked at Birley’s complex alone, suggesting it was the largest mill in Manchester. Three of the mills on Cambridge Street were connected by tram tunnels to allow them to move material between buildings unimpeded by the crowds outside.
The building now call Hotspur Press was the largest structure in the Medlock Mills complex, which was owned by a cotton baron called John Fairweather, and then by a series of his heirs in the following decades.
According to a map published in 1888, the building had by this point ended the first phase of its life making cotton, and was now a printing works, owned by the Percy Brothers Ltd. A brass sign bearing that company name is still in place next to one of the building’s doors.
It has been suggested that the name ‘Hotspur Press’ has connections with the popular boys’ comic the Hotspur, which ran from 1933 to 1959 and Henry Percy (‘Harry Hotspur’), the medieval knight who was the son of the 1st Earl of Northumberland during the Hundred Years’ War. Sadly, the former of these is not true, and the latter remains conjecture.
Wasn’t sure this place was still standing but apparently it’s been bought and is going to be redeveloped into even more trendy apartments.