The project to repair and conserve the Grade 1 listed mill, famed for its 'fireproof construction' and iron frame - the first such building in the world and the ancestor of the modern skyscraper.
Ditherington Flax Mill in Shrewsbury is listed at Grade I. Other buildings on the same site are listed at Grade II* and Grade II and the whole complex sits within a conservation area.
By the late 18th century, patterns in the wool trade were changing. So was the role of the border town of Shrewsbury - which had a tradition of textile finishing and trading dating back to the medieval trade in Welsh wool.
With the importance of wool in Shrewsbury declining (the last traditional open wool market in the town was held in 1797), merchants Thomas and Benjamin Benyon decided to diversify into linen - for which flax is the raw material.
In 1793 the Benyons established a partnership with John Marshall of Leeds, who had pioneered the mechanisation of flax spinning. Then, in 1796 they decided to build a mill in Shrewsbury - in partnership with local surveyor and leading industrialist Charles Bage. Bage was a member of the circle of scientists, engineers, industrialists and intellectuals who gave the county its technological cutting edge.
The new mill was built at Ditherington - then on the outskirts of Shrewsbury - next to the newly constructed Shrewsbury Canal in 1797.
The Flax Mill was immediately famed for its 'fireproof construction' and iron frame - the first such building in the world and the ancestor of the modern skyscraper.
The flax business thrived and the site developed rapidly. Most of the present buildings were in place by 1812 and produced linen cloth, and later linen thread, for almost 100 years. The business began to decline in the 1870s, however, and in 1886 the mill closed and the company wound up.
In the late nineteenth century the buildings became a maltings, finally closing in 1987. Various regeneration schemes have come and gone since that time, none of them successfully harnessing the necessary private sector investment to give the buildings a new lease of life.
Vandalism and neglect have also taken their toll on the site, which has been on the Heritage at Risk register for many years. Things came to a head in April 2004 when an urgent repairs notice was served on the site's then owner, forcing a resolution.
With support from Advantage West Midlands and the then Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough Council, English Heritage acquired the freehold of the site in March 2005. Since that time, this partnership has worked to resolve the difficulties facing the development of the site.
In 2005, a detailed structural assessment of the buildings was undertaken by Alan Baxter Associates. This work was necessary to understand the load bearing capacity of the buildings - and what new uses might be appropriate. A number of problems were revealed by the study.
The engineers were able to make use of Charles Bage's original papers and determined his experiments and calculations on cast iron were reasonably accurate.
The documents revealed that Bage did not fully understand the principal of what is now called 'hogging'. That is, if a long beam of cast iron rests at its centre point on a column, and weight is applied to its ends, it will bend to a small extent. The beam can then fail without any warning.
Bage also seemed to have not allowed for the fact that as the building was constructed, the additional weight of the outer brick walls made the ground settle - to a greater degree than the ground beneath the columns. Combined with the hogging effect, this resulted in a number of beams failing.
Another problem is the facade walls of the Main Mill. Wood, rather than stone, was used to support the beams on the wall. Wood has also been used at the back of the window arches, passing deep into the brick piers on either side. The sheer volume of timber used, and the fact some of it has rotted over the past 200 years, has added to the urgent need for conservation.
The outer skin of the Main Mill is very delicate and scaffolding has been built to hold the walls in place while a solution is designed. Internal propping has also been used to make sure movement is kept to a minimum.
Since 2005, the land adjacent to the Flax Mill site has been acquired by Shropshire Council. This has enabled the design of a scheme that will provide a suitable, high quality setting for these internationally important buildings. It also provides a site big enough to consider new buildings to help stimulate the wider area.
The project partnership of English Heritage, Shropshire Council, the Homes and Communities Agency and Advantage West Midlands has appointed a design team - led by award winning architects Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, and including leading structural engineers Adams Kara Taylor and nationally acclaimed landscape architects Grants Associates. The teams are now working towards the submission of a detailed planning application.
