Quarry Bank Mill

The industrial revolution played a major part in England's history and it is at this attraction that you can get to see first hand it's progression. I remember learning about this at High School during Social Studies lessons and it would have been fantastic to have been able to visit and see a place such as this.

 

This was a cotton factory, founded by Samuel Greg in the early 18 th century and it is now a working museum. It showed the whole process of turning cotton fibres into cloth. The various rooms were set up to show the different processes, starting with spinning wheel, a hand loom for weaving, and then onto the mechanisation of the whole process. At various points along the way there were people operating the equipment and explaining exactly what was happening.

The part that interested Stephen the most was the Power Gallery. This showed how water was used and developed over the years to power the machinery. It was particularly hands on for children with lots of opportunities to work with model water wheels or even create their own. In fact throughout this working museum it was very interactive for children: weaving, stamping patterns on fabric, fueling the steam engine.

We joined a guided tour to the Apprentice House. Here we learnt all about the 'apprentices', children who were indentured from aged 9 to 21 years. Ninety children lived in this house and we heard how they lived and worked basically for their keep. According to our guide children working in this factory were much better off than in many other similar places. I don't think I would have liked to have lived in such circumstances. It makes you realise just how lucky we are (and our children) to live in today's world.

We finished our visit to Quarry Bank with a quick walk around the gardens that were part of the Mill owner's gardens. His house was on the same site and there were extensive gardens. The National Trust has spent considerable time on reconstructing these gardens. The kitchen gardens are the latest project and they had recently unearthed a dipping pond. I wasn't sure what this might be, but the information board told us this was used to dip their watering cans into it. Garden hoses of course hadn't been invented.



 

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