Melbourne Mill was built in 1878 on land belonging to Champion Murgatroyd, a cotton dealer and spinner then based at Mayroyd.

 

The new mill was intended to increase production of fustian and corduroy in Champion's expanding empire and by 1901 he had succeeded in forcing an amalgamation of the three biggest cloth manufacturers in Hebden Bridge under the ownership of the English Fustian Manufacturing Company.

Hebden Bridge was the world's leading centre for the manufacture of fustian and corduroy cloth which were used for making “heavy trousers for the working man”. Indeed it was locally said that Hebden Bridge provided the world's trousers and for a period this was certainly no idle boast.

At Melbourne Mill the basic woven cloth was made and the wide open well-lit floors assisted the fustian cutters in their work which included cutting the rolls of cloth in a single cut along the full length of the mill.

Foreign competition and changing fashions eventually broke this international business and today only one mill remains still making the traditional cloth.Most of the mills fell silent and many were demolished in the 1960's. Melbourne Mill survived as an empty shell perhaps because its integral place in the centre of a popular residential street made demolition very difficult.

Now however, Mango is taking advantage of this superb survivor from a bygone age to use the building as a focal point for a conversion which in combining tradition with contemporary design will create a unique place in which to live.