Arrest made after Bailey Mill fire in Delph
Bailey Mill well alight
Reporter: Stuart Littleford
Police investigating the fire at Bailey Mill in Delph have made an arrest.
Shortly after 3pm on Tuesday, 14 June 2016, police were called to the listed Bailey Mill on Oldham Road in Delph.
Emergency services attended and evacuated nearby houses as well as enforcing road closures around the area.
Firefighters extinguished the fire and the building was totally gutted.
A 16-year-old boy has been arrested on suspicion of arson with intent to endanger life. He has been bailed pending further enquiries until 19 July 2016.
Detective Inspector Mark McDowall of GMP’s Oldham team said: “This was an enormous fire that could have had tragic consequences for people in the area. It has also destroyed a listed building.
“We are appealing for anyone who was in the area at the time who may have seen something that can help with our investigation to come forward.”
Anyone with information should call police on 0161 856 8427, 101 or Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.
Author: Jude Gidney - Editor
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It has had much more than tragic consequences for people of the area DI Mark, in that the building should have been developed years ago into affordable housing apartments for those wanting to get housed in their own place (& eventually perhaps ascend the property ladder) as well as preserving the building & providing a basement museum record for posterity and the local community who benefitted (especially in these days of migration once again, since the founders family were Huguenots which were graciously received by this country & more than contributed to its economy, social & spiritual life)!
It’s an enormous loss to Saddleworth!
It has been quite a week.
Not the week I thought it would be, a usual week at work. It has however, been a week of high emotion, evacuation, danger to lives, high public opinion, devastation, and damage to reputations.
I can only give you my thoughts. 153 years of heritage, my childhood playground, brought down in hours. On Wednesday evening after the fire, as I watched Bailey Mill brought down, with tears in my eyes, I could only imagine the stories those walls could have told. What amazing stories they would have been. The families that had worked there, the sights they had seen, the conversations of love, life and no doubt scandal they had heard. The Chimney still towering proudly in the background although now smokeless like the factory owner with his back tall and proud above his workers. I looked at what was left of the cracked windows dark emptiness like the soulless eyes probably just like so many of the workers that had laboured behind them.
I saw scattered on the ground, remnants of what was left of the antiquated wooden floors that had been soaked in sweat and no doubt some blood too, all as ancient and as black as the oil it mixed with.
The walls could tell stories of the forboding manner of a machine operative, smirking where the small child crumpled under the power of the Jenny as he scuttled below it picking up bobbins like a rat through rubbish.
Through the noise of the modern metal monster that was to bring Bailey Mill down, there was a haunting silence resounding through the space where once there was nothing but repetitive chatter of machinery.
Yet with all the sorrow and joy those walls held, Bailey mill had a beauty that could be seen within the wrinkled stones and crumbling mortar. A stunning innocent beauty like that of the mill owners daughter that wandered the perimeters looking for her lost love. On Tuesday, I became that mill owners daughter. I will forever look for my lost love. I will never find it, because it is now an open wound on the ground that will become a hidden scar on the landscape. My love for that building will remain forever.
I feel it should have come down years ago, but not in the way it ended up doing so. That aspect I find incredibly sad. I find it sad that someone sought to kill its beauty that could have been saved in some way in a different use, in a safer environment. The fact remains that Bailey Mill is gone, and we now only have the memories to live with. But on the whole they are good memories. Memories that I will treasure along with the immense pride of my ancestors that built Bailey Mill. I will continue with their passion in my blood and Bailey Mill will be remembered not only by me personally but also in the name of the soft furnishing side of the business that I now head, Bailey Laine.
Katie Mallalieu
Beautiful words Katie. I’m not originally from Saddleworth but I moved here due to it’s beautiful surroundings, industrial history and its friendly neighbourly people. Bailey Mill was so much more than just an old derelict building. Your account of Bailey Mill has made me feel in awe of Saddleworth’s hidden gems.