Stone Rubbing Mill
In this mill, stone was dressed, polished, and finished. The process developed on this site because of the railways, and is therefore a relative latecomer to the area. The mill is probably an offshoot of the quarrying firm of Henry Heys & Co., which in a trade directory of 1885 advertised itself as: 'Henry Heys & Co; Stone Merchants, Stacksteads nr. Manchester. All kind of Landings, Flags, Curbs, Channels and Setts of the Hardest Material, either Self-faced or Polished.'
Trafalgar Square
Local legend has it that the stone from this mill was used in the making of Trafalgar Square in London.
By 1890, Broadley Siding was the terminus of a mineral railway comprising a 3ft gauge line which served quarries at Bagden on the eastern side of Rooley Moor. It also had its own quarry tram road. However, by 1928, the building is shown only as a shell.
Nevertheless, we know the mill to been made up of rectangular buildings aligned along the siding platform.
The surviving remains here include two grinding pits set each side of a central engine bed; these were inside a 30m long building. Here, the flags were placed on long tables that were wheeled beneath the rotating flat concentric iron rings of the polishing machines. This was open-sided with the exception of the engine, which was enclosed within its own engine house. The central bay was probably a boiler house. This made up the northern half of the site. Abutting this, to the south was a narrow bay with a chimney at its western end. This is now difficult to identify on the ground, but it may have been a boiler house. The southern part of the buildings (the dressing shed) is identified as a linear depression. It was divided into two equal bays.
Now that nature has taken over the ruins of the Stone Rubbing Mill, you will be more likely to see tiny Long-tailed tits than huge stone flags. They are very social birds that travel in family groups and are easily recognisable because their tails are longer than their bodies. They have an undulating flight and move quickly and noisily amongst the Brambles and bushes where they nest.
