Council backs proposals for a new gym at Queensbury's historic Black Dyke Mills

Macclesfield-based Lowry Partnership submitted plans for the conversion of a section of Black Dyke Mills in Queensbury late last year.

Fronting Brighouse Road, the section of the Grade II-listed building is currently a blank wall, with doors and windows having been filled in over the mill’s history.

Under the plans these openings would be re-instated.

The gym will likely create four full time and three part time jobs.

Since its height as an industrial building the mill has been subdivided, and is home to numerous local businesses.

Bradford Council planning officers have now approved the development, saying: “Black Dyke Mills stands at the centre of Queensbury and dominates the settlement.

“It is predominantly the reason for the existence of the village, with housing and other facilities expanding as the mill grew.

“The mill complex is one of the most complete, significant and imposing in the district. “The buildings the subject of this application front Brighouse Road and presently present a largely blank wall of coursed stone.

“In this location this use is appropriate and beneficial to the local economy. Moreover, it would bring a vacant unit back into use.”

Black Dyke Mills, which date from the early 1800s, was established by John Foster, a British manufacturer of worsted cloth, who married Ruth Briggs, daughter of a landowner from Queensbury, in 1819.

By 1851 the complex was dominating the Queensbury landscape and at the Great Exhibition of that year he was awarded first prize for alpaca and mohair fabrics and the gold medal for yarns. On his death in 1879, he was succeeded by his son William, who had been made a full partner in the business of John Foster & Son in 1842.

The company, which employed hundreds of workers in the village through the 19th and 20th centuries, continues to weave mohair, cashmere and worsted made from the highest quality merino wool, as well as other noble fibres, into luxury fabric for fashion houses, designers, tailors and retailers across the globe today after moving operations from Queensbury several years ago.

The mills, which have now been turned into industrial units for dozens of businesses, are also synonymous with the world-famous Black Dyke Band, formerly John Foster & Son Black Dyke Mills Band, one of the oldest brass bands in the world, which has a base in Sandbeds, Queensbury, yards away from the complex.