Temple Works Egyptian-style landmark mill in Leeds gets £1m boost

Developer CEG will carry out work to make the Egyptian-styled landmark watertight before refurbishment

Urgent repair works on an empty Egyptian-inspired Victorian mill in Leeds have received a £1m boost.

The former flax-spinning Temple Works is to be part of the planned British Library building in Leeds.

The Holbeck landmark is known for its architecture and stories of sheep grazing on grass grown on the roof.

Historic England has awarded a £636,000 grant to help secure the spinning mill roof and £400,000 for repairs to the neighbouring Counting House.

The Grade I listed site, empty for 20 years, had been a mail order warehouse before plans for retailer Burberry to use it were dropped in 2017.

It is hoped the Leeds building will become a new public space for the British Library whose nearby base in Boston Spa is home to more than three-quarters of the library's collection.

It is hoped the site can be a Leeds base for the British Library

The mill complex finished in the 1840s was one of the first, large-scale single-storey factories, according to Historic England.

The Victorian mill owners are said to have hoisted sheep onto the roof to graze on grass that was grown to maintain humidity in the building to stop the flax from breaking, it added.

Money from the government's Heritage Stimulus Fund will contribute to work to prop up the interior of the mill, on the Heritage at Risk Register since 2000, until permanent repairs can be undertaken.

The unusual roof-lights allowed the large mill to be well lit, the roof was once supposedly grass-covered

The West Yorkshire Combined Authority awarded the project a £5m grant last year.

Councillor Helen Hayden said the work would "repurpose an important part of our city's heritage and help drive wider regeneration in Leeds' South Bank".

Meanwhile, Historic England's funding for the Counting House will support repairs to the roof and walls, making the building watertight before the next phase of refurbishment.

Work is due to be completed in time for Leeds' Year of Culture in 2023.

A recent Historic England report revealed there are more than 230 vacant and under-used mills in Yorkshire.

This landmark was built in the Egyptian Revival style, a copy of the Temple at Edfu