Quarry Bank Mill 2023, England

We had visited Quarry Bank Mill a few times since it is near Manchester Airport, so it's a good spot to kill some time before a flight (or to walk around after being on the plane too long and not wanting to drive an hour and half).

Quarry Bank Mill

We visited the gardens. The mill generated its own town, with gardens made by locals (both the working class people and the owner of the mill). Some gardens were for pleasure, others for practicality. 

Walled gardens

Flowers along a path

View to the mill (not so great)

Quarry bank part of the area

Hillside formal garden

More hillside formal garden

Two bridges

View to the Owner's House (not so great)

The owner's house is available for tours but we did not go there.

Back of the house

The door on the road is the front door, right?

The mill has a lot of displays on various aspects of the mill's history. First, we read about the Greg family moving to the area and building the mill in the 1700s.

Travel trunk and itinerary

An extensive exhibit talks about the health problems of people working at the mill back in centuries past. One of the hands-on challenges is to put a brain together. My daughter and I couldn't get it done. Had we already been at the mill too long?

Brain puzzle

Some of the repetitive work led to physical limitations (in addition to mental problems like not knowing how the brain goes together!). Some workers did have more dynamic tasks, like engineers or supervisors. young people would sometimes be tested if they had potential for more complicated work. My son tried a challenge to move a ring around without touching the metal pole in the center. The trick is the pole's shape--a human!

Test for work-worthiness

We saw plenty of machines that clean and weave the cotton processed here.

Carding machine

Kids worked at the mill along with parents, sometimes 12-hour days for six days a week! A display talked about various laws that put limits on how much and what age children could work. The first law created four inspectors to cover the 3000 mills to make sure they were following proper standards.

That girl manikin seems to have an opinion

In the basement of the mill is a lot of information on how they used the river power to power the mill. My kids enjoyed the gigantic wheels and seeing how the engineers moved a bit of the river to make the power levels more consistent.

Water management

After a few years, they realized that the weather had an impact on productivity (too little rain meant too little power). The owners bought a steam engine to supplement the river power. The machine was for pumping water, so the local engineers had to rig up something to change the up-and-down motion into rotary motion. It was fascinating!

Original steam engine

As you might guess, dear reader, we visited on the way to airport to continue our European adventures on the continent! More too follow!

Quarry Bank Mill, England--Inside

Having seen the outdoor attractions, we headed into the main building of Quarry Bank Mill to learn the history of thread and fabric making during the Industrial Revolution. The mill was built in 1784 by Samuel Greg, a textile merchant who saw the possibilities of water-powered spinning machines in a factory. Cotton was processed at this mill and we learned quite a bit.

Weighing a cotton bale

The fibers (or fibres as the locals spell them) were twisted into threads to make yarn. One display showed how flexible fibers are much easier to twist together than more solid ones.

Fiber challenge

The mill processed fibers from a wide variety of sources, even raw cotton shipped from the United States!

Fiber producing countries

We saw demonstrations of hand-operated looms.

Weaving demo

The mill includes some hands-on opportunities for the kids which J and L enjoyed.

Mill model with light-up sections telling what went on where

L and the mill puzzle

Just about finished building the mill

Operating a crane

The equipment for turning threads into fabrics and fabrics into patterned fabrics are on display as well.

E pluribus unum, Industrial Revolution-style

Block for putting patterns on cloth

Rollers to put on patterns!

The plant manager's and other offices are left as they were in the 1800s.

A cozy office with a big safe

Taking advantage of natural light for the clerk's desk

Another desk

Some equipment

Prior to the 1800s, dentistry consisted of little more than pulling out teeth that hurt. In the 1800s scientific and technological breakthroughs made dental health care both easier and more sophisticated. By the mid-1800s, the Royal College of Surgeons was certifying professionals in the art of dentistry. The Gregs recognized the importance of providing dental care for workers (a worker with a toothache was a lot less productive) and had dental services available for their employees. Their mill was the main employer for the town so they served just about everyone locally.

Late 1800s dental chair

At the bottom level of the plant is the very impressive plant floor, with dozens of machines powered by water. Most every step of the cloth production process was made easier and quicker.

The plant floor

First sign of a water wheel--the water below

Suspiciously modern-looking equipment

Here we saw displays on how the water was diverted from a local river and the various types of water wheels used to power different mills.

L redirects river water

J works one type of wheel

Undershot, breastshot, and overshot wheels

Quarry Banks' breastshot wheel

Water wheels weren't the only technology in use. Several other items were used at the mill to do the work. By the 1900s, coal was used to power the equipment.

Sample coal engine

One of the tricks with wheel-power is to convert the circular motion into up-and-down motion. An arm on the wheel can be attached to a beam to pull a piston up and down. The only difficulty is that the piston is pulled off its vertical line, resulting in jams. James Watt added some movable joints on the piston side creating a parallelogram that shifted it shape but left the piston in a straight line. Energy could be converted either way--from circular to vertical or from vertical to circular.

Parallel motion machine on right

Another device invented by James Watt is the Governor. One of the problems with a large plant is that various machines are turned on and off at different times, so the amount of power needed fluctuates throughout the day. If the same amount of power was fed into the system when only a few machines were working, power would be wasted and the machines still in use might run at speeds higher than intended.

The Governor has two weighted balls on levers. As the engine runs, the balls spin and fly up and out. If the engine goes faster (i.e., when other machines aren't using its power), the weights go higher. The levers lift a collar that limits the amount of steam in the system, reducing the power created. Waste is eliminated!

The Governor

Governor on a wheel

The mill is a fascinating place to visit for its historical and its scientific information.

Quarry Bank Mill, England--Outside

When we lived in England, we took a lot of trips in and out of Manchester Airport. People who visited us often flew in and out of there as well. We'd often pick up or drop off visitors. Sometimes, rather than drive the one and half hours there and head straight back we'd do something extra either along the way or in the Manchester area. One time we stopped at Quarry Bank Mill, an old fabric mill less than 10 minutes from the airport.

View from the parking lot, darn trees!

The smokestack end of the mill

Walking in, we saw some of the drive shafts from the mill's water wheels. The original 1818 shaft was replaced in 1847 when a crack was found in the original. The 1847 shaft needed repairs in 1874 but continued to work until 1904. The shafts are amazingly huge and can even be used as a bench.

Massive drive shaft

The 1847 shaft

L uses it as a bench

Being a National Trust site, the mill has a playground that J and L wanted to visit before going to see all the boring historical stuff. J started with the covered slide.

At the top of the slide

At the bottom of the slide

L liked the bridges but J wasn't sure which way to go down.

Ready to cross

Go like a fireman or Indiana Jones?

Other classic equipment includes a climbing challenge that wasn't too challenging.

Going up

No where to go but down from here

L was a bit worn out, you might even say she was tired.

No interest in tyres

J on the big swing

Soon enough the children had their fill of fun. We headed off to the mill, which required us to cross a few bridges.

Playground view of the mill

Bridge over water power

More on the mill in the next post!