Shore Mill

Messrs Leach & Clegg and Consterdine & Kershaw took over a small mill in Shore in 1845. Shortly afterward Consterdine & Kershaw left to set up Brookfield Mill next to the canal in Littleborough and later Leach left the business. Subsequently, Shore Mill complex was expanded by the Clegg’s from the original Landlake Mill (pictured right) to include a second mill on the western end of the site actually called Shore Mill (below right). The company continued to modernise and expand throughout the 19th Century and early 20th but the factory also suffered from restrictions imposed on the export of cotton cloth to the large Indian Market.

During World War One the mills lost 57 workers in the killing fields of Belgium, France and Turkey including 2 officers who were members of the Clegg Family. A Memorial to the fallen was erected in 1922 and remains to the day.

After the second world war Clegg’s undertook an extensive modernisation programme including purchasing many more automatic machines, in part to overcome a staffing shortage.

Clegg’s were famous locally for producing Shore Sheets and they developed a separate company to market the products including specific vans.. It is understood they also owned Lamp Laundries who had offices on Cote Lane.

In 1948 Clegg’s merged with A S Orr and Company Ltd of Bamber Bridge to create a new Public Company - Clegg and Orr Ltd. The mills in Shore continued in operation until the Clegg and Orr’s mills  were bought by Vyella in 1964. The 1960s were a time of rationalisation of the cotton industry and just 3 years later Vyella announce the closure of their mills in Shore, Littleborough’

The mills at Higher Sore, Landlake and Shore are included in Ithe booklet ‘Industrial History No 6’ - see front cover below right

A few years later, the mills in Shore were taken over and used for a number of years by Ashe Chemicals who made pharmaceutical products,. This ceased in the 1980's. The site of the mill is now occupied by housing but the Company’s War Memorial still remains within a remembrance garden.