Robert Fletchers Paper Mill
Robert Fletcher and its mill is located in the valleys of east Oldham, the origins of which can be traced all the way back to the Industrial Revolution. It was first owned by the Crompton family, trading under the name Ralph Crompton and Nephews. The mill was based in Stoneclough, Manchester and produced paper for the first time in 1829. Before it went into receivership, it was the sole manufacturer of cigarette paper and the water from the hills was essential to that process. Even before Dove Stone reservoir was built water was collected by a series of pipes from the Chew Valley area.
The mill has been stationed here for over 200 years with Robert Fletcher & Son commencing the business of cigarette paper manufacturing in 1921. At its height, it employed 1000 people to run seven paper machines.
By 1986 the company was making a loss and was purchased by the Melton Medes Conglomerate who turned the company around and started to make a profit once again. However by 2001 the company was once again failing and the decision was made to close the other mill it owned, Stoneclough Mill. Some people were transferred to the Greenfield mill, but the company could not sustain the increasing losses and it was forced into receivership. The workers were told to go home one day when the receivers came in and it was said it may be resolved. They never went back and the place is frozen in time.
This is a fantastic look at the mill while it was working, narrated by Eric Gaunt, Technical Director at the time.
1st Visit
Our first visit here was met with limited success and tbh, a lack of info on the place. I was new to the hobby of urbex still and a photographer friend who’d dabbled a bit in exploring before going more commercial, asked if I’d been and showed me his pics. I thought it looked amazing. He drew a map and showed me where to park, walk and enter through. If only things were that easy. You can only know so much about a place when you’re looking at a Google Earth image of it and it looks completely different when you get down to ground level, and you realise there’s security on site!
Anyway, the access point had been sealed and was a towering fortress of crates, vandal grease and barbed wire and even if we weren’t new to it, it would have been a no go. We were left to wander the site looking for anything that resembled a way in and we made it into a couple of out buildings with nothing much in them. However, we did gain access to a long brick toolroom in the middle of the site through an unlatched window. This was cool until we tried to get out and the security patrol walked round the corner just as we opened the window. They didn’t see us but we were trapped in the middle of the site now not knowing where they were!
2nd Visit
Much more success to be had the 2nd time round and subsequent visits after that too. One of my favourite places to visit at one time and when I first read that the place was ‘frozen in time’, it could not have been more true - it really is the epitomy of that.
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