BRICK IN THE NEWS: FACING THE FIRST USE OF A NEW BUILDING TECHNOLOGY: DITHERINGTON MILL, SHREWSBURY, SHROPSHIRE

摘要

Both the buildings with the earliest use of a completely iron-framed interior and the first fully steel-framed building in the British Isles have been in the news in the early part of 2020, the former with good news, the latter for a less favourable reason. This note concerns the first iron-framed interior and its brick exterior walls. Ditherington Mill, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, was built between 1795 and 1797 as a flax mill, beside the Shrewsbury Canal, and in response to the demand for linen in the war against the French (1793-1801, 1803-1815); lined was the fabric for soldiers' uniforms. It was designed by Charles Bage, a Shrewsbury surveyor and wine merchant, who went into partnership with the Benyon brothers of Shrewsbury and John Marshall of Leeds, a pioneer in the mechanisation of the flax industry in 1795. Benyon had a serious interest in iron and its structural qualities and knew both William Strutt of Belper, Derbyshire, whose mill had iron columns and William Reynolds of Coalbrookdale, Shrops., who had experimented with cast iron. Unlike Strutt's mill at Belper, Ditherington Mill had both uprights and horizontal beams of iron with the iron cast by William Hazledine of Shrewsbury; the Belper mill had iron uprights but wooden beams. At Ditherington, the spaces between the beams were filled with brick arches. Bage used iron window frames and so eliminated any use of wood in the working area of the mill, so reducing fire risk. The outer brick walls were still load-bearing and provided stability to the iron frame. The stairs were housed separately and access from the working floors was through iron doors. The mill was 180 feet (55 metres) long and 36 feet (11 metres) wide. The external walls are of very large bricks.