Holbeck Mills

The mill had been empty since 2006 and on the Heritage at Risk register since 2014. The frame was sound; almost nothing else was. The brief was 68,000 square feet of lettable workspace with the listed fabric repaired rather than concealed, on a site with no vehicular access on three sides.

The complication was that the ground and first floors were let to two tenants who could not be moved. So the job was sequenced upward from level two with a separated site entrance, a temporary works scheme carrying scaffold loads through the existing floors, and agreed noisy-works windows of 9.30am to 3.30pm.

Cast iron column repairs were carried out in situ by a specialist we have worked with since 2013. Lime mortar throughout. The new steel deck floors sit on independent padstones so nothing new bears on the historic fabric.