Report - Radford Mills/Viyella Works, Nottingham April '12

[mookster]

After Mansfield and failing at Clipstone due to me being too fat to fit through the only readily available access point me and Flubs headed to our backup backup site in Nottingham.

From the outside this place looks huge but in reality only a small part is really accessible and it became apparent security had recently sealed bits of it. After poking around in the easily accessed bits and braving piles of pigeon poo I eventually got pissed off at continuously finding locked doors, dead ends and other such idiocy and so called it a day.

History stolen from jST's report.

The Spinning works finished in 1959, and the site was destined to be sold off for housing. However, Viyella decided to cling onto the site using it as a small scale dying works finally coming to an end in the 60s. Like most mills in Nottingham around that time it was broken up into smaller firms, one of which still occupies the ground and upper floors today.
The works were once again destined to become housing/apartments in 2003, but it now appears the scheme has been put on hold.

Company History

The original owner of the Mill, Wm. Hollins also ran the mill in Pleasley on a rather unusually named road ‘Via Gellia’ now the A5012 near Matlock, about 20miles away. Via-Gellia later gave its name to the famous soft fabric ‘Viyella’ which Hollins & Co patented in 1893. Later Viyella was also to become the company name in 1961 after a merger. Viyella has faded into obscurity now, and in 2009 went into administration, finally being bought out by Austin Reed.

As we made our way out of the flying rat infested boiler house for the second time I spotted security had turned up outside the main access gate....time to leave.

Could have spent all day in this room but the light was disappearing...

Thanks for looking, more pics can be found here Radford Mills/Viyella Works