diff --git a/tests/mockserver.py b/tests/mockserver.py
index 2c0ad66fba5..b73208c5cad 100644
--- a/tests/mockserver.py
+++ b/tests/mockserver.py
@@ -1,10 +1,10 @@
 from __future__ import print_function
 import sys, time, random, urllib, os, json
+import six
 from subprocess import Popen, PIPE
-from twisted.web.server import Site, NOT_DONE_YET, GzipEncoderFactory
-from twisted.web.resource import Resource, EncodingResourceWrapper
+from twisted.web.server import Site, NOT_DONE_YET
+from twisted.web.resource import Resource
 from twisted.internet import reactor, defer, ssl
-from twisted.web.test.test_webclient import PayloadResource
 from scrapy import twisted_version
 
 
@@ -168,8 +168,13 @@ def __init__(self):
         self.putChild("drop", Drop())
         self.putChild("raw", Raw())
         self.putChild("echo", Echo())
-        self.putChild('payload', PayloadResource())
-        self.putChild("xpayload", EncodingResourceWrapper(PayloadResource(), [GzipEncoderFactory()]))
+
+        if six.PY2 and twisted_version > (12, 3, 0):
+            from twisted.web.test.test_webclient import PayloadResource
+            from twisted.web.server import GzipEncoderFactory
+            from twisted.web.resource import EncodingResourceWrapper
+            self.putChild('payload', PayloadResource())
+            self.putChild("xpayload", EncodingResourceWrapper(PayloadResource(), [GzipEncoderFactory()]))
 
     def getChild(self, name, request):
         return self
diff --git a/tests/test_downloader_handlers.py b/tests/test_downloader_handlers.py
index 127c4a4bda2..9021af3b403 100644
--- a/tests/test_downloader_handlers.py
+++ b/tests/test_downloader_handlers.py
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 import os
 import twisted
+import six
 
 from twisted.trial import unittest
 from twisted.protocols.policies import WrappingFactory
@@ -287,23 +288,28 @@ def test_download(self):
 
     @defer.inlineCallbacks
     def test_download_gzip_response(self):
-        crawler = get_crawler(SingleRequestSpider)
-        body = '1'*100 # PayloadResource requires body length to be 100
-        request = Request('http://localhost:8998/payload', method='POST', body=body, meta={'download_maxsize': 50})
-        yield crawler.crawl(seed=request)
-        failure = crawler.spider.meta['failure']
-        # download_maxsize < 100, hence the CancelledError
-        self.assertIsInstance(failure.value, defer.CancelledError)
-
-        request.headers.setdefault('Accept-Encoding', 'gzip,deflate')
-        request = request.replace(url='http://localhost:8998/xpayload')
-        yield crawler.crawl(seed=request)
 
-        # download_maxsize = 50 is enough for the gzipped response
-        failure = crawler.spider.meta.get('failure')
-        self.assertTrue(failure == None)
-        reason = crawler.spider.meta['close_reason']
-        self.assertTrue(reason, 'finished')
+        if six.PY2 and twisted_version > (12, 3, 0):
+
+            crawler = get_crawler(SingleRequestSpider)
+            body = '1'*100 # PayloadResource requires body length to be 100
+            request = Request('http://localhost:8998/payload', method='POST', body=body, meta={'download_maxsize': 50})
+            yield crawler.crawl(seed=request)
+            failure = crawler.spider.meta['failure']
+            # download_maxsize < 100, hence the CancelledError
+            self.assertIsInstance(failure.value, defer.CancelledError)
+
+            request.headers.setdefault('Accept-Encoding', 'gzip,deflate')
+            request = request.replace(url='http://localhost:8998/xpayload')
+            yield crawler.crawl(seed=request)
+
+            # download_maxsize = 50 is enough for the gzipped response
+            failure = crawler.spider.meta.get('failure')
+            self.assertTrue(failure == None)
+            reason = crawler.spider.meta['close_reason']
+            self.assertTrue(reason, 'finished')
+        else:
+            raise unittest.SkipTest("xpayload and payload endpoint only enabled for twisted > 12.3.0 and python 2.x")
 
 
 class UriResource(resource.Resource):