Plantation Mill, Peel Park, Accrington, Lancashire. Archaeological Survey.

In April 2010, Oxford Archaeology North (OA North) was commissioned by Jacobs Engineering (UK) Ltd, to carry out an archaeological survey of a former industrial site in the Peel Park area of Accrington, Lancashire (centred on NGR SD 377480 428690). The survey was required to inform and support design proposals for the regeneration of the park and the site, which was occupied from the late eighteenth
century by a textile-manufacturing works.
The study area comprised two parcels of land, with a total area of approximately 6000m². The site was occupied from the late eighteenth century by a water-powered fulling mill, and redeveloped in 1810 as a calico printworks, known as Plantation Mill. For a supply of water and source of power, both of these textile works relied on the Pleck Brook, which flows through a steep ravine on the northern boundary of the
study area. Plantation Mill was rebuilt during the mid-nineteenth century, as part of a programme of expansion to the works; it is likely that this remodelling included the
installation of printing machines for the first time. The complex was expanded further prior to 1894, reflecting the continued regional growth and concentration of the calico-printing industry. However, the operating company went into decline in the early twentieth century and closed in 1934, with the mill complex finally being demolished in the 1940s.