The day after Martin Simpson, which was our wedding anniversary. UF had somewhere else to be. He seems busier now than he ever did when he was working! Anyway, TBH and I decided to have a day out together, starting with a visit to Stott Park Bobbin Mill.
I don’t think TBH had ever been to the Mill before, but I came here with other trainees when I was doing my teaching qualification, so….1989, I think.
They still do superb guided tours and demonstrate the machinery.
But that tour was given by an ex-employee from when the mill still functioned as a going concern (it closed in 1971).
He had a marvellous cumbrian accent and a store of gruesome stories about the horrific injuries which the machines and all of those moving bands could cause.
Anyway, the mill is fascinating, well worth a visit. The detail which stuck in my head this time was the amount of sawdust generated – I’m sure that we were told that the staff would be waist deep in the stuff, which seems like a fire hazard!
Years ago, TBH and I did a tour of one of the world’s first cotton mills (in Belper, Derbyshire). Apparently, with all of the cotton dust in the air, early cotton mills were real powder kegs.
On a side note, the word bobbins will always remind me of ‘The Robins Aren’t Bobbins’ a song about Altrincham FC by Chris Sievey in the guise of his alter-ego Frank Sidebottom. Like anyone who went to a lot of gigs in Manchester in the eighties, I saw Frank Sidebottom perform several times. I could never really make my mind up about him. Still can’t. I was trying to explain the act to ‘Little’ S, but I think I lost him when I mentioned Little Frank – a ventriloquist act by a man wearing a papier mache head – does it get any weirder than that?
Still, ‘Is this the real world, or is this just Timperley?’ Immortal.
Beating The Bounds 
Huge fan of Frank (and little Frank). I was also fortunate to see him live. Ted Chippington was another.
Oh yes! Ted Chippington! ‘She loves you and you know, that can’t be bad.’
All dusty places, including windmills and animal feed mills can explode if the dust ignites. Same with coal dust – they tries to0 use coal dust as a fuel in early engines. Mr Diesel originally tried to run his engine on powdered coal dust. Of course, with dusty atmospheres it’s the lung disease rather than the explosions that generally get you. despite this, it looks like a lovely place and seems to be very interesting.
Lovely to look around, not sure it was an ideal place to work!
I think that sums it up. I watched them running the looms at Masson’s mill once (Matlock Bath). Very impressive but very noisy. It would have driven me mad.
Aah, the day of the wooden bobbin! Fascinating to visit, but not the best conditions to work in.
My mum worked for a while in a small mill and I remember all of the colourful bobbins, but I think that they were all plastic, sadly.
Never heard of the place or how complex and potentially life threatening making Bobbins could be.
Very close to the car park for High Dam. You could combine a walk a swim and a bit of industrial archeology.
What a combination
Best not to combine them too closely, by, for example, swimming in canals, as I learned the hard way!