Helmshore Mills Textile Museum
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Helmshore Mills are two mills built on the
River Ogden A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wate ...
in
Helmshore Helmshore is a village in the Rossendale Valley, Lancashire, England, south of Haslingden between the A56 and the B6235, north of Manchester. The population at the 2011 census was 5,805. The housing in Helmshore is mixed, with some two-up, two- ...
,
Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...
. Higher Mill was built in 1796 for William Turner, and Whitaker's Mill was built in the 1820s by the Turner family. In their early life they alternated between working
wool Wool is the textile fibre obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as mineral wool and glass wool, that have properties similar to animal wool. As ...
and
cotton Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus ''Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor perce ...
. By 1920 they were working
shoddy Recycled wool, rag wool or shoddy is any woollen textile or yarn made by shredding existing fabric and re-spinning the resulting fibres. Textile recycling is an important mechanism for reducing the need for raw wool in manufacturing. Shoddy was ...
as condensor mule mills; and equipment has been preserved and is still used. The mills closed in 1967 and they were taken over by the Higher Mills Trust, whose trustees included historian and author Chris Aspin and politician Dr Rhodes Boyson, who maintained it as a museum. The mills are said to the most original and best-preserved examples of both cotton spinning and woollen fulling left in the country that are still operational. Following the withdrawal of its grant from Lancashire County Council, the museum closed to the public on 30 September 2016 for an indefinite period. However, the museum remained open for pre-booked school visits. In April 2018 the council announced that the museums would reopen to the general public for three days a week between April and November.


Location

Helmshore Mills lie within Helmshore, a village in the
Rossendale Valley The Rossendale Valley is in the Rossendale area of Lancashire, England, between the West Pennine Moors and the main range of the Pennines. The area includes the steep-sided valleys of the River Irwell and its tributaries (between Rawtenstall a ...
,
Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...
. The village is south of
Haslingden Haslingden is a town in Rossendale, Lancashire, England. It is north of Manchester. The name means 'valley of the hazels' or 'valley growing with hazels'. At the time of the 2011 census the town (including Helmshore) had a population of 15,96 ...
, broadly between the A56 and the B6235, approximately north of
Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
, and from the
M65 motorway The M65 is a motorway in Lancashire, England. It runs from just south of Preston through the major junction of the M6 and M61 motorways, east past Darwen, Blackburn, Accrington, Burnley, Brierfield, Nelson and ends at Colne. History The ...
. Helmshore straddles the
River Ogden A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wate ...
, a tributary of the
River Irwell The River Irwell ( ) is a tributary of the River Mersey in north west England. It rises at Irwell Springs on Deerplay Moor, approximately north of Bacup and flows southwards for to meet the Mersey near Irlam. The Irwell marks the boundary be ...
. The village developed around the seven cotton and wool mills.


History

The Turner family had already been involved in textiles before the mills were built. Three of the six family members made their living from wool in Martholme, and three brothers from cotton in
Blackburn Blackburn () is an industrial town and the administrative centre of the Blackburn with Darwen borough in Lancashire, England. The town is north of the West Pennine Moors on the southern edge of the Ribble Valley, east of Preston and north-n ...
. In February 1789, they paid £725 for land for a mill. The family built Higher Mill on a greenfield site in the parish of
Musbury Musbury is a village and civil parish in the East Devon district of Devon, England. It lies approximately away from Colyton and away from Axminster, the nearest towns. Musbury is served by the A358 road and lies on the route of the East Devo ...
as a
woollen Woolen (American English) or woollen (Commonwealth English) is a type of yarn made from carded wool. Woolen yarn is soft, light, stretchy, and full of air. It is thus a good insulator, and makes a good knitting yarn. Woolen yarn is in contrast t ...
fulling Fulling, also known as felting, tucking or walking ( Scots: ''waukin'', hence often spelled waulking in Scottish English), is a step in woollen clothmaking which involves the cleansing of woven or knitted cloth (particularly wool) to elimin ...
mill, but by 1792, three members of the family had dropped out of the enterprise. It was the son of one of these original six, a William Turner (1793–1852), who built the larger wool carding and spinning mill in the 1820s. The wool went to Middle Mill on Holcombe Road for weaving, then returned to Higher Mill for fulling and finishing. Turner instructed in his will that the mill should be sold on his death, which occurred in 1852. This mill was destroyed by fire in 1857, and was rebuilt in 1860 by Edward Turner. At some point after the end of the American Civil War and the return of cotton imports to Lancashire, the rebuilt mill started spinning cotton. When the mill was rebuilt, it was equipped almost but not completely by Messrs Walker & Hacking of Bury with machinery for processing raw cotton through to fine cotton spinning and (unlike in later years) weaving with
power loom A power loom is a mechanized loom, and was one of the key developments in the industrialization of weaving during the early Industrial Revolution. The first power loom was designed in 1786 by Edmund Cartwright and first built that same year. ...
s built by Dickenson of Blackburn. Due to later reconfigurations of the site, it is almost impossible now to see any evidence of this layout. In the 1920s, the mill was bought by L.Whitaker & Sons who installed cotton condensing equipment and the mill continued in that business until November 1978. Higher Mill came to be operated by Lawrence Whittaker in 1875 still using Turner's machinery, and his descendants continued to run it as a fulling mill until June 1967. The two families may have been distantly related, but by the 1920s the Whittakers were a well-known local family while the L. Whitaker & Sons group no longer had any Whitakers working for them and were owned and run by the Hardman family. The freehold of both mills in the Helmshore Mills Estate was bought by Lawrence Whittaker's family.


The Museum

When Rossall Whittaker died in 1971 leaving no male heirs, Higher Mill was saved by local enthusiasts who recognised its significance and had it scheduled as an
Ancient monument In British law, an ancient monument is an early historical structure or monument (e.g. an archaeological site) worthy of preservation and study due to archaeological or heritage interest. The '' Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 197 ...
, and bought it through a trust. Platt International, whose site was also in Helmshore, owned a significant collection of historic textile machines and agreed that they should be located in Higher Mill. The task of running a museum and maintaining the buildings put pressure on the trust, so in 1975
Lancashire County Council Lancashire County Council is the upper-tier local authority for the non-metropolitan county of Lancashire, England. It consists of 84 councillors. Since the 2017 election, the council has been under Conservative control. Prior to the 2009 La ...
stepped in, taking a 99-year lease. Whitaker's Mill became vacant in 1978 and Lancashire County Council, seeing the advantages of having control of the two mills, bought the condensor mill. This allowed them to also purchase the Platt collection in 1985, keeping the site intact and forming a comprehensive museum of the Lancashire textile industry. The expertise, knowledge and experience of the site staff and Lancashire Museums Service is used by other sites including NT
Quarry Bank Mill Quarry Bank Mill (also known as Styal Mill) in Styal, Cheshire, England, is one of the best preserved textile factories of the Industrial Revolution. Built in 1784, the cotton mill is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a ...
at Styal and the
Science and Industry Museum The Science and Industry Museum in Manchester, England, traces the development of science, technology and industry with emphasis on the city's achievements in these fields. The museum is part of the Science Museum Group, a non-departmental pub ...
in Manchester.


Exhibits

The museum divides its collections into three themed areas, representing the
wool Wool is the textile fibre obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as mineral wool and glass wool, that have properties similar to animal wool. As ...
story, the cotton story and the spinning floor. The wool story shows the
water wheel A water wheel is a machine for converting the energy of flowing or falling water into useful forms of power, often in a watermill. A water wheel consists of a wheel (usually constructed from wood or metal), with a number of blades or buckets ...
and fulling stocks and clay pots used to collect
urine Urine is a liquid by-product of metabolism in humans and in many other animals. Urine flows from the kidneys through the ureters to the urinary bladder. Urination results in urine being excretion, excreted from the body through the urethra. Cel ...
from the local cottages, which produced the
ammonia Ammonia is an inorganic compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the formula . A stable binary hydride, and the simplest pnictogen hydride, ammonia is a colourless gas with a distinct pungent smell. Biologically, it is a common nitrogenous was ...
needed for fulling. It goes on to show the later box system. There is a tenter frame, with the
tenterhook Tenterhooks or tenter hooks are hooked nails in a device called a ''tenter''. Tenters were wooden frames which were used as far back as the 14th century in the process of making woollen cloth. The phrase "''on tenterhooks''" has become a met ...
s to show how the cloth was dried without shrinking and how
teasel ''Dipsacus'' is a genus of flowering plant in the family Caprifoliaceae. The members of this genus are known as teasel, teazel or teazle. The genus includes about 15 species of tall herbaceous biennial plants (rarely short-lived perennial plants ...
s were used to lift up the
nap A nap is a short period of sleep, typically taken during daytime hours as an adjunct to the usual nocturnal sleep period. Naps are most often taken as a response to drowsiness during waking hours. A nap is a form of biphasic or polyphasic sl ...
. This was of course later mechanised and there is a teasel-holding frame known as the teasel raising gig. The cotton story illustrates firstly the hand weavers' cottage, with a frame loom with a hand-thrown shuttle; mannakins represent the weaver and two women spinning the yarn on different types of
wheel A wheel is a circular component that is intended to rotate on an axle Bearing (mechanical), bearing. The wheel is one of the key components of the wheel and axle which is one of the Simple machine, six simple machines. Wheels, in conjunction wi ...
. A child is shown hand-
carding Carding is a mechanical process that disentangles, cleans and intermixes fibres to produce a continuous web or sliver (textiles), sliver suitable for subsequent processing. This is achieved by passing the fibres between differentially moving su ...
. It is here we see a 16-spindle
spinning jenny The spinning jenny is a multi-spindle spinning frame, and was one of the key developments in the industrialization of textile manufacturing during the early Industrial Revolution. It was invented in 1764 or 1765 by James Hargreaves in Stanhill ...
that would have dated from about 1760, and a 50-spindle improved jenny. There is an original Arkwrights first
carding machine Carding is a mechanical process that disentangles, cleans and intermixes fibres to produce a continuous web or sliver suitable for subsequent processing. This is achieved by passing the fibres between differentially moving surfaces covered wit ...
. There is a complete sequence of machines that would have taken the bolls from the bales:
opener Opener, Open'er or Openers may refer to: * ''Opener'' (album), an album by 8mm * Opener (baseball), a baseball strategy to use a relief pitcher to start a game * Open'er Festival, a contemporary music festival held in Gdynia, Poland * Bottle opene ...
, scutcher, breaker card, finisher card, draw frame and finally a complete Arkwright
water frame The water frame is a spinning frame that is powered by a water-wheel. Water frames in general have existed since Ancient Egypt times. Richard Arkwright, who patented the technology in 1769, designed a model for the production of cotton thread; t ...
dating from 1790. Sharing the floor at Whitaker's Mill is the equipment needed to prepare the waste cotton for the cards in the room above. There is a single cylinder picker for soft waste and a six cylinder devil for the hard waste. The spinning floor was one of two at this mill, and has all the equipment to breaker card the
shoddy Recycled wool, rag wool or shoddy is any woollen textile or yarn made by shredding existing fabric and re-spinning the resulting fibres. Textile recycling is an important mechanism for reducing the need for raw wool in manufacturing. Shoddy was ...
( recycled cotton) and to finisher card the
sliver Sliver may refer to: Entertainment *Sliver (novel), ''Sliver'' (novel), a 1991 novel by Ira Levin **Sliver (film), ''Sliver'' (film), a 1993 film adaptation of the novel **Sliver (soundtrack), ''Sliver'' (soundtrack), the soundtrack to the 1993 fi ...
s into
roving A roving is a long and narrow bundle of fiber. Rovings are produced during the process of making spun yarn from wool fleece, raw cotton, or other fibres. Their main use is as fibre prepared for spinning, but they may also be used for specialised ...
s. These go onto the 714-spindle Taylor Lang
spinning mule The spinning mule is a machine used to spin cotton and other fibres. They were used extensively from the late 18th to the early 20th century in the mills of Lancashire and elsewhere. Mules were worked in pairs by a minder, with the help of two ...
s. Opening, scutching and mixing happened on the floor below. This is the only original and complete floor of its type left. Spun yarn is sent to sister museum
Queen Street Mill Queen Street Mill is a former weaving mill in Harle Syke, a suburb to the north-east of Burnley, Lancashire, that is a It was built in 1894 for the Queen Street Manufacturing Company. It closed on 12 March 1982 and was mothballed, but was ...
on the outskirts of
Burnley Burnley () is a town and the administrative centre of the wider Borough of Burnley in Lancashire, England, with a 2001 population of 73,021. It is north of Manchester and east of Preston, at the confluence of the River Calder and River Bru ...
to be woven.


Closure

In November 2015
Lancashire County Council Lancashire County Council is the upper-tier local authority for the non-metropolitan county of Lancashire, England. It consists of 84 councillors. Since the 2017 election, the council has been under Conservative control. Prior to the 2009 La ...
announced that it would withdraw funding from five of its museums:
Fleetwood Museum Fleetwood Museum is a local history and maritime museum in the English seaside town of Fleetwood, Lancashire. The museum was originally the town's Customs House and, completed in 1836, was one of the first buildings constructed in Fleetwood. Lik ...
, Helmshore Mills Textile Museum, Judges' Lodgings,
Museum of Lancashire The Museum of Lancashire is an historic collection in Preston in Lancashire, England. The museum, which is based in the old Sessions House, is a Grade II listed building. History Construction of the courthouse, which was commissioned to accomm ...
and
Queen Street Mill Queen Street Mill is a former weaving mill in Harle Syke, a suburb to the north-east of Burnley, Lancashire, that is a It was built in 1894 for the Queen Street Manufacturing Company. It closed on 12 March 1982 and was mothballed, but was ...
because of what the leader of the council described as "the financial challenges facing the county council as we deal with relentless cuts to central government funding combined with rising demand for our services." They were initially to close at the end of March 2016 but that month were reprieved until 30 September 2016. The museum closed on 30 September 2016, along with the other four Lancashire museums mentioned above, except for pre-booked school groups. Lancashire County Council's website stated that "Negotiations are underway to identify a new operator." In April 2018 it was announced the museum would reopen on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from May 26 until 28 October 2018 and between Easter and the end of October 2019.


The mills

The whole site is a Scheduled Ancient Monument; Higher Mill is also a
Grade II listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
. The associated chimney stack on the other side of Holcombe Road is also separately
Grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
.


Condenser spinning

Fine spinning produced a lot of waste, so naturally this was recycled. This waste was the raw material of a condensor spinning mill. It came in three forms: loose staple, unspun rovings and spun thread (hard waste) that had been pirned but rejected. No matter its source, it had to be devilled (broken down) to staple, then scutched and carded in the normal way. After these processes the staple was very short, and the processing of the lap was different – a Derby Doubler was used to mix slivers into sliver lap. A notable feature of the mule was that the rovings were on a beam rather than on individual bobbins. As the fine spinning of cotton contracted, so did the need for condensing.


Boilers and chimney

When the
steam engine A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be trans ...
was installed in Whitaker Mill,
Lancashire boiler A shell or flued boiler is an early and relatively simple form of boiler used to make steam, usually for the purpose of driving a steam engine. The design marked a transitional stage in boiler development, between the early haystack boilers and t ...
s were ubiquitous. For maximum efficiency they required air to be drawn over the coals, and this was the function of the mill chimney. As these mills are set in a valley the airflow was irregular, so the chimney was built on the hill opposite and the flue passed over the river and underground to reach the chimney, providing the required updraught. The first boilers in Whitaker Mill were built by B. Hick and Son of Bolton and were installed around 1855; at the 1868 auction the mill was equipped for fine cotton spinning with a number of power looms also on site. The later Lancashire boilers in Whitaker Mill, built by Yates and Thom of Blackburn, were taken out in the 1950s. The boiler for heating Higher Mill was of the Cornish type installed where the hub is now.


Water

Clean water was needed for processing the cloth. This was captured from field drainage on the hillside opposite and stored in a
lodge Lodge is originally a term for a relatively small building, often associated with a larger one. Lodge or The Lodge may refer to: Buildings and structures Specific * The Lodge (Australia), the official Canberra residence of the Prime Ministe ...
on the farther side of the river, piped across when required. The
water wheel A water wheel is a machine for converting the energy of flowing or falling water into useful forms of power, often in a watermill. A water wheel consists of a wheel (usually constructed from wood or metal), with a number of blades or buckets ...
, and later the engine condenser, could use the then highly polluted water from the River Ogden: a
weir A weir or low head dam is a barrier across the width of a river that alters the flow characteristics of water and usually results in a change in the height of the river level. Weirs are also used to control the flow of water for outlets of l ...
was placed 800m upstream and the water diverted into a long canal-like lodge that finished at the mill. Having passed over the pitch-back wheel, the water passed through a culverted tail
goit A leat (; also lete or leet, or millstream) is the name, common in the south and west of England and in Wales, for an artificial watercourse or Aqueduct (watercourse), aqueduct dug into the ground, especially one supplying water to a watermill ...
back into the Ogden.


See also

*
List of mills in Lancashire This is an incomplete list of the cotton and other textile mills that were located within the modern-day boundaries of the ceremonial county of Lancashire, England. The first mills were built in the 1760s, in Derbyshire using the Arkwright ...
* Listed buildings in Haslingden *
Cotton mill A cotton mill is a building that houses spinning (textiles), spinning or weaving machinery for the production of yarn or cloth from cotton, an important product during the Industrial Revolution in the development of the factory system. Althou ...


References


Notes


Further reading

* * * * * * * *


External links


Helmshore Mills Textile Museum
– Lancashire County Council
Friends of Helmshore
{{Borough of Rossendale buildings Textile mills in Lancashire Buildings and structures in the Borough of Rossendale Museums in Lancashire Textile museums in the United Kingdom Cotton mills Woollen mills Cotton industry in England