FOR generations they have stood close to the centre of Burnley, pointing to the town's industrial past.

But now the demolition of the two prominent mill buildings is almost complete.

Earlier this year, bulldozers moved in to start knocking down the famous Clock Tower Mill, which dominated Sandygate and the Weavers' Triangle, after Burnley Council members ruled that it was unsafe.

Sandygate, off Trafalgar Street, was closed and a nearby canal towpath was shut off by British Waterways after a structural survey of the mill revealed it was in a dangerous condition.

Work has also started on knocking down the former home of Northern Textiles, also based in Trafalgar Street.

The building, which dates back to the 18th Century, is being demolished to make way for four separate industrial units.

The building was formerly owned by printers FH Brown, which closed after a scandal involving Sun bingo cards.

The cards were printed for the daily newspaper at the Burnley factory but winning tickets were being sold off in the town.

Archie Norman, the Asda magnate and more recently a Tory peer, was instrumental in reopening the building for Northern Textiles. He was chairman at French Plc, the parent firm of Northern Textiles.

The manufacturing company have owned the warehouse for the last six years, using it to make bedding products. But the firm closed its Burnley operation last year.

The former Clock Tower cotton mill, further along Trafalgar Street, was built in 1840 by the Slater family but was gutted by a savage blaze shortly after its completion.

It was rebuilt along with a clock in the 1860s, becoming the town's first public timepiece.

It was a cotton and lace factory, owned by John Watts, when it was partly destroyed by fire in the late 1980s and has lain empty ever since.

As a Grade II listed building, exhaustive efforts have been made since the blaze by Burnley Council, English Heritage and a succession of owners and developers to find a way of restoring it to its former glory but the effects of the fire and the weather finally proved too much.

The council's executive member for planning, environment and transport, Coun Frank Cant, said: "It is always a pity to see listed buildings lost like this.

"Clock Tower Mill was an important piece of Burnley's history. However, we have to be realistic and the safety of the public must come first.

"When we heard that the building was likely to collapse we closed the surrounding road and footpaths and British Waterways did the same with the Leeds Liverpool Canal."