On the opposite bank of the canal from Feeder Road, just after the railway bridge, was the site of the Great Western Cotton factory. The five-storey spinning mill was demolished in the late 1960s, but there are still remnants of the weaving sheds in the industrial estate. The factory was the biggest cotton factory outside the north-west and thrived from 1837 until the 1920s, employing about 1000 people from Barton Hill. This began the urbanisation of the Feeder Canal area as the first industry to flourish as a direct result of the construction of the waterway. Barges brought raw cotton from America and the calico cloth was made from it and exported to the Far East. Barton Hill owes its existence to the building of the Feeder Canal. Without it the Great Western Cotton Factory would never have been built where it was and the streets that grew up around it to house the workers would never have followed.