Salts Mill: How Yorkshire’s former cloth mill has impacted residents of Saltaire over the last 170 years as village named among best places to live by The Times

The Industrial Revolution occurred from the mid to late 18th century and brought about many positive changes to various towns and cities in the UK including Bradford such as wealth and production of fabric.

However, the positive changes from this period had also resulted in negative ramifications; due to Bradford’s rapid growth, it became overcrowded, congested and had poor infrastructure.

Industrialist Sir Titus Salt had been heavily involved in the development of his family’s business when he took over his father’s textile business in the 1830s.

He had turned it into what was thought to be the largest employer in Bradford by 1853; at that time he had expanded the company into five sites in the area.

In a bid to improve living conditions for his workers, Titus moved his business three miles out of Bradford in 1853 to a site now known as Saltaire, where he built a mill and model village for his employees.

Freelance curator, June Hill, from Bradford, reflected on the benefits of the mill and the village for his workers.

“They were looking at creating model industrial communities, so that’s where Salts Mill came in,” she said.

“You would say then it was known as a palace of industry and pulled together some of the advances of technology from the Industrial Revolution, using steam power.

“It was built between the river, the canal and the railway so it was able to maximise all of the benefits in transport from trains, with canals and you could use the river for providing water to help run the boilers on site. When it was built it was said to be the most modern mill in Europe.

“There was quite a lot of innovation around it; they collected rainwater on the roof and used that to help fight fires if there was anything on site.

“They also had an underground system to collect water that could be used for processes around the mill as well, it was environmentally friendly in that way.

“I think it was very progressive for its time.”

The village of Saltaire didn’t just improve the practicalities of life for its residents in the 19th century, it also vastly improved the social aspect.

“[Saltaire] provided good social and recreational activities, not just housing,” Ms Hill said.

“They had an institute and that would include a library, a gymnasium, they’d also emphasised about music so they [introduced] a brass band and a magical society.

“They had a hospital and infirmary, almshouses for residence, so all of that suggests a really considered community. Certainly a contrast to the much poorer housing elsewhere.”

Titus Salt was known for his alpaca wool production and attracted a variety of notable figures including Queen Victoria.

“Alpaca wool was a little bit tricky to use, there were some people who started to experiment but it was Titus Salt who found a way to maximise its potential and to produce it in large quantities,” Ms Hill said.

“It was very much a fitted Victorian costume society around this time; they were looking for large attractive cheap materials for dress.

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“His products were very well known, they won awards in 1851 at the Great Exhibition for the costumes they were making.

“Queen Victoria had a couple of alpacas at Windsor Great Park and she used to send wool to Titus Salt so he could make the cloth that would then be made into dresses for her.”

Residents living in Saltaire did experience negative effects from various events in history and strict rules and regulations Titus Salt put in place.

“Maybe it’s fair to say the residents have gone through the ups and downs of the mill as well,” Ms Hill said.

“It was a very successful mill to begin with, then you would have periods, in particular with the textile industry, as it went through slumps in the 1870s and 1890s. In the 1920s there were coal strikes.

“They also came with some rules and regulations, you had to put your clothes at a particular site, people couldn’t put washing out in the street.

“There was no pub in the community but I think the intention was to try and provide a positive environment for people.”

The mill continued to produce cloth until 1987 when it was bought out by Jonathan and Maggie Silver, who transformed it into a creative hub.

This year, The Times has listed Saltaire as one of the best places to live in the UK.

Ms Hill said she thinks the Silver family’s takeover of the mill has helped shape the village into what it is today.

“That had a huge impact on Saltaire, the residents, and made Saltaire a very desirable place to live in a different context,” she said.

“It’s a mixed model; you’ve got the arts, the books, the restaurants, some really nice places to visit but you’ve also got small and large businesses that are based there.

“I think it’s interesting seeing what they could do in how they could transform or work with what was a palace of industry and give it a different form of life that linked with its past but also brought it to [the present] and future.”

The attractive qualities of the mill and village from the mid 19th century still remain today and continues to be an area of growth and development.

“It’s nice to wander around, you’ve got the canal and the river, it’s sort of that bridge between being part of a city but also going out into the countryside,” Ms Hill said.

“There’s such a nice range of things to do, the cultural offer that’s there and it’s got history. I love to visit myself, I feel very fortunate that it’s just on my doorstep.

“The practicalities of it, which they had in Titus’s day, is excellent with great [transport links] for people working in Leeds or wherever.

“You’ve got a really good trainline there that can take you in a short time to Leeds, or down to London or to Edinburgh. All of those things are real assets.”