Historic England back our Peel St Mill project

We are honoured that Historic England has chosen our project to be part of their Everyday Heritage programme. More than 500 applications were received and the Historic England panel selected only 50 so just to make the cut is a big deal.

Some years ago we created a magnificent garden and farm in an unloved area of land at the back of our Head Office in Cherwell Avenue in Heywood. Somebody mentioned that it was once a pond that fed an old mill. We thought nothing more about it until we began building 17 apartments on the adjoining site, and found that there were cellars buried below ground which had belonged to terraced houses for mill workers.

We found that our HQ had once been the site of Peel Street Mill, which with 107,000 spindles made it one of the biggest of Heywood’s 50 mills.

Having been granted £10,000 by Historic England, we will spend the next year engaging with local people to try to find out the stories of the mill and the lives and loves of the people that worked there. We will be doing this in so many ways – writing; poetry; art; music; animation; podcasts and model making. This will culminate in a historic trail around the site telling some of the stories.

We want people from the local community to get involved. Here is a story that has been buried and built over. If you want to help us to bring it to life, do get in touch malcolm.mcclean@possabilities.org.uk 07802 326652.