diff --git a/scrapy/core/downloader/handlers/http11.py b/scrapy/core/downloader/handlers/http11.py
index 926d8b655..4f044f55f 100644
--- a/scrapy/core/downloader/handlers/http11.py
+++ b/scrapy/core/downloader/handlers/http11.py
@@ -29,6 +29,7 @@ class HTTP11DownloadHandler(object):
         self._pool._factory.noisy = False
         self._contextFactoryClass = load_object(settings['DOWNLOADER_CLIENTCONTEXTFACTORY'])
         self._contextFactory = self._contextFactoryClass()
+        self._disconnect_timeout = 1
 
     def download_request(self, request, spider):
         """Return a deferred for the HTTP download"""
@@ -36,7 +37,24 @@ class HTTP11DownloadHandler(object):
         return agent.download_request(request)
 
     def close(self):
-        return self._pool.closeCachedConnections()
+        d = self._pool.closeCachedConnections()
+        # closeCachedConnections will hang on network or server issues, so
+        # we'll manually timeout the deferred.
+        #
+        # Twisted issue addressing this problem can be found here:
+        # https://twistedmatrix.com/trac/ticket/7738.
+        #
+        # closeCachedConnections doesn't handle external errbacks, so we'll
+        # issue a callback after `_disconnect_timeout` seconds.
+        delayed_call = reactor.callLater(self._disconnect_timeout, d.callback, [])
+
+        def cancel_delayed_call(result):
+            if delayed_call.active():
+                delayed_call.cancel()
+            return result
+
+        d.addBoth(cancel_delayed_call)
+        return d
 
 
 class TunnelError(Exception):