"It was thrown up in the 1870s by Samuel Cunliffe Lister, and for more than a century was one of the great industrial palaces of the north. Since shutting in 1999, about half has been restored as offices and high-end flats; the other half is derelict. Forests of buddleia cover the concrete floors, and fox trails wind through the weeds. Peer through steel grilles into the basements, and see hart's-tongue ferns as thick and green as cabbages in a vegetable patch."
"Rust is everywhere (what John Ruskin called living iron: It is not a fault in the iron, but a virtue, to be so fond of getting rusted). On the stretch of grass across the street, gulls gather in great numbers. Today they're mostly black-headed, with one hulking lesser black-back comically conspicuous in the middle of the throng. At the back I spot two first-year common gulls, paddling their feet in a hopeful worm dance."
Lister's Mill (Manningham Mills) in Bradford is a 19th-century silk mill built by Samuel Cunliffe Lister that once ranked among Europe's largest industrial palaces. Since closing in 1999, approximately half has been converted to offices and high-end flats, while the other half remains derelict, colonized by buddleia, fox trails, and thriving hart's-tongue ferns in the basements. Rust permeates the structure. Urban birdlife surrounds the site: pigeons and large gulls gather on adjacent grass, and peregrine falcons nest on the ornamented parapet chimney, rearing chicks aided by volunteers who installed a nesting tray and created a peregrine trail through local post-industrial architecture.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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