Saving the first iron-framed building

Nobody passing a scruffy, half-derelict industrial estate on the outskirts of Shrewsbury would imagine that one of the battered, red-brick structures is the ancestor of today's skyscrapers - the first iron-framed building in the world.

Sir Neil Cossons, chairman of English Heritage, which has just bought the complex after helplessly watching it rot for years, is passionate about Ditherington Flax Mill, and describes it as "one of the most important buildings in England - or anywhere".

It was built in 1796 by John Marshall, a linen magnate, and his partners, the Benyon Brothers, who had good reason to dread fire in mill buildings: they had just suffered £10,000 worth of damage at a Leeds mill, of which only half was covered by insurance.

Posted by David on April 10, 2005 8:32 PM