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Part of Temple Mill – modelled on the Egyptian Temple of Edfu – collapsed in December, sending debris from the grade one-listed building showering into the street in Holbeck.

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Scaffolding was immediately set up to try to prevent further damage and further props are to be erected within the next fortnight.

But English Heritage bosses say major works will be required to stop the 170-year-old mill from collapsing completely.

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Talks are currently underway with owners SJS Property Management and engineers are costing the work, expected to come in at hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Trevor Mitchell, architectural historian with English Heritage, is in consultation with SJS.

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He said: "The damage you see on the outside doesn't at all give the real picture. The problem is actually 60 times greater than it appears from the front.

"What is happening is that the steel bars used in the construction were never really strong enough. Now the roof is basically pressing down on the building and pushing the walls out. When it was designed all those years ago, they did not have the technology we have now.

"The shoring that has gone up has stopped the damage from spreading but it won't stop the underlying problem so until more work is done, there is still some risk further collapse will happen.

"Some more scaffolding needs to go up quite soon and then there needs to be a long-term plan for the whole building which will be particularly expensive.

"In a way, the building is a victim of its own vanity. In a normal construction if you needed to buttress a building to support it, you could do it on the outside.

"Here, because the exterior is the
feature, it must be buttressed on the inside, which makes it more expensive."

The imposing building in Marshall Street, which covers an area of two acres, was erected between 1839 and 1841 and until the collapse boasted 18 ornate stone pillars. It had been used for storage for years but was bought by SJS Property Management in 2005.

It announced plans to transform Temple Mill into a "cultural retail" centre featuring a mix of shops, art, sculpture, restaurants and cafes. The restoration alone was set to cost around £30m.

The credit crunch has slowed those plans but a spokesman for the firm said it remained committed to the project.

He said talks were ongoing over the best way to safeguard the mill's immediate future.