Rossendale Mill was built in 1860 and is  even today known as Atherton Holme mill.

The mill was built by the Rossendale Spinning and Manufacturing Co Ltd. in 1860 at which time the course of the River Irwell was changed to form a rectangular site for the mill. The capital of the company was said to be £50,000 in shares of £5.00. The first officers of the company being  Henry Howarth, a Clogger of Stacksteads and Oliver Turner a Overlooker of Waterfoot. Joseph Hardman a Overlooker of Stacksteads.  Richard Parker a Inn Keeper of Stacksteads, Charles Stansfield of Tunstead , John Pollard  a mechanic of Stacksteads, James Howarth, engineer were the first directors. In 1879 the mill contained 60, 000 spindles.

The mill mass produced cotton up until 1936, by 1939 the mill had been taken over by  a new company Lord and Clegg and was producing shoes and slippers. Whilst another portion of the mill had been taken over by the Bacup Shoe and Slipper Company. By 1940 all cotton manufacturing had ceased at the mill. Since 1950 many changes have taken place in the vicinity of Rossendale Mill. Gone have the lodges, the railway and the house of Taylor Holme have been replaced by industrial buildings.

 

The Athertons

Over the years many people have wondered about the name of Atherton connected with the mill . John Atherton was born about 1820 he was a Iron and Brass founder he and his wife Ellen had two sons and two daughters Samuel, Robert, Elizabeth Ann, and Martha Ellen. John Atherton was man of land a property as well as his trade of Iron and Brass founder. He owned two or more plots of land in Tunstead named Lower Holme and Higher Holme on which he eventually built the Rossendale Mill known locally as Atherton Holme. The name Holme meaning a flat piece of land by a river. John Atherton also owned Hill House Barn estate on Booth Road, which he had purchased from the Munn's in 1851.  In 1858 John Atherton owned Irwell Foundry, on the 27th February he was Bankrupt having debts of £2.740 there was 65 creditors who each received fifty percent of their debts. Irwell foundry was advertised for sale in 1863  the same year John Atherton died on December 15th at the age of 43 at his home Irwell House, Stacksteads. His wife dying three years later at the same address aged 46.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Samuel Atherton was the sole executor of  his fathers will and the sole inheritor, by 1868 Samuel was the inn keeper of the Atherton Holme  Inn in Siding Street, Stacksteads but later relinquished this establishment to James Worswick in 1869.  By 1870 Samuel was operating as a coal merchant in Blackwood Road. Owning a sand pit on Booth Road by 1878 at which he sold sand at two shillings and three pence a load.

 

Samuel had moved to Waterfoot by 1878 having moved there about 1876 and was also working as a auctioneer, and in 1876 he sold 12 houses in Atherton Holme which were purchased by the Rossendale Spinning  Co Ltd. The following year he was the proprietor of the Duke of Buccleugh pub in Waterfoot. Robert Atherton purchased a joiners shop in 1877 from a John Taylor, the name Taylor crops up frequently in Atherton legal documents. Later the same year Robert took possession of the Atherton Holme Inn holding possession until 1881 when it passed to Richard Hitchen.

 

Accidents and Fires

 

1882 Fire in scutcher room , no real damage.

 

1895  About nine thirty on Wednesday a man named Arthur Bell, employed as a hoist tenter

by some means fell down the lift shaft and broke his back, noone saw his fall and he was found later by Thomas Cowell. He was removed to his home by the police ambulance. But later the same day due to his injuries he was removed to the infirmary at Manchester.

 

1900 Fire at Atherton Holme Mill.

 

1909 A fatal accident a man  named William Walton, employed as a winder-on at Atherton Holme

was terminally injured. Walton was receiving warps down a chute from the size house to the winding room, when he was caught by one of the warps and fatally injured.