Mills Transformed – Neil Horsley

Across the north of England mills dominate skylines and define communities. Mills are as an important a part of our national heritage as churches, cathedrals and country houses. Local people often have an emotional bond to mills as nostalgic connections to their childhood, places where members of their family once worked and monuments to long gone industries and trades. Although once the foundation of the industrial revolution sadly hundreds of textile mills now sit derelict and forgotten.

However, mill buildings can adapt to changing times and economic circumstances. With imagination mills can be renovated and re-born accommodating unforeseen uses. Mills Transformed is a project documenting mill buildings which have been renovated and repurposed. Over the last three years Neil Horsley, a local photographer, has been documenting the repurposing of derelict textile mills, by inspiring people, who have found creative new uses for such buildings. This involved visiting, photographing and interviewing mill renovators at 33 mill conversion across the north of England – amazing success stories of how large-scale mill complexes have, against all odds, been renovated to accommodate a wide range of uses such as housing, business workspace, artist studios, galleries, colleges, café restaurants, a classic car workshop, retail outlets, music venues and even the longest bar in Britain!