Tag: Textile Mill
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#668 – Wood Top Mill, Burnley
While Burnley was known as a textiles town, the decline in that industry in the mid 20th century left a great deal of empty mills, and a number of these were taken over by the expanding aerospace industry. The catalyst for this was WW2 and with Burnley’s relatively remote location and skilled workforce, Lucas industries…
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#650 – Imperial Mill Blackburn 2
As I moved out of Blackburn in 2004 and stopped working there in 2006, I rarely go back unless I have to. It’s a town I have mixed memories of, and as I wasn’t born there, and most of my friends from there have also moved elsewhere, so there’s little to take me back. Nonetheless,…
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#649 – Imperial Mill Blackburn
I lived in Blackburn for a few years in the late 90’s / early 2000’s and used to work near this place, Imperial Mill. I took some photographs of it that I don’t think I’ve ever put on here but you might have seen the one above on my website if you’ve ever visited it.…
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#648 – Vine Mill, Oswaldtwistle
I was in ‘Ossy’ on the way back from somewhere else, so I thought I’d swing by this place as it’s been in my list for a while. It’s not the most visually interesting mill, so I took a couple of record photographs and then went down a lane at the side to see if…
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#647 – Stonebridge Mill, Oswaldtwistle 2
In days gone by, a mill at the end of the street was a common site in Lancashire and Yorkshire, with the terraced housing being built for the mill workers. Let’s not romanticise it though – these places were noisy and had smoke billowing out of the chimney 24/7 so I can’t imagine they were…
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#646 – Stonebridge Mill, Oswaldtwistle
Oswaldtwistle is one of those northern towns like Slaithwaite (Slawit) and Barnoldswick (Barlick) that is not pronounced as it is spelt. Locally it is pronounced ‘Ozuldtwissle’ or just ‘Ozzy’ if you’re really local. Actually, it’s not really a town, it’s more a suburb of Accrington (which is pronounced as it is spelt, although generally abbreviated…
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#628 – Talbot Mill, Manchester 2
As I often do, I’ve inverted this reflection because, well it just works better this way in my opinion. I like the way the texture of the fluffy clouds gives way to the lumpy asphalt. This was taken on my phone, the grittiness of the puddle and the textures elsewhere make up for some of…
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#627 – Talbot Mill, Manchester 1
As of the time of writing (November 2023), there are very few mills and warehouses around city centre Manchester that haven’t been renovated or pulled down. Medlock Mill is I think the only one left within the ring road (Chatham Mill potentially but seems to have had some internal refurbishment), but just beyond it is…
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#624 – Mather Lane Mill No.3 (Brooklands Mill) Leigh
On the south side of the Bridgewater Canal is the other remaining mill of the Mather Lane complex, Mill No.3 which is also known as Brooklands Mill. Unlike No.2 mill, this is still in industrial / commercial use but split into multiple units as is normally the case with old mills. The adjacent mill (No.1…
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#623 – Mather Lane Mill No.1, Leigh
Just up the Bridgewater canal from Butts Mill are Mather Lane Mills, a small complex of mills that straddled both sides of the canal. Wikipedia tells me that it was built in 1882 and the Bolton architects of Bradshaw, Gass and Hope were responsible for the design, as they were of many Lancashire mills. In…
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#622 – Butts Mill, Leigh 3
My last photo of the front of the mill was taken from further away than the ones in my last post, but made a feature of the corner markings. I’ve processed all the photos the same way, making the grass really dark and ‘muddy’, and bringing out the whites of the field markings. It was…
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#621 – Butts Mill, Leigh 2
Butts Mill sits opposite Dootsons Park Playing Fields, and a game of youth football had just finished when I got there. This was a shame as it would have been nice to have got some players in the frame when I photographed the mill, but I think an empty pitch works equally well. I decided…
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#620 – Butts Mill, Leigh 1
I stumbled across this place a few years ago when I was driving past and didn’t have a camera with me, and it’s taken me a long time to go back to take a closer look. It’s an impressive place and, well the Historic England listing describes it better than I ever could: “Cotton spinning…
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#619 – Higher Walton Mill 2
I wanted to take some alternative views of the mill but struggled to find a perspective I liked as not only is the mill set back from the road, it’s at an angle to it as well as below the road level. The perimeter fence did catch my eye though. It’s not something I’d normally…
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#618 – Higher Walton Mill 1
Like many Lancashire towns, Preston once had dozens of cotton mills, but very few have survived. There are of course a couple of significant exceptions, with the refurbished Hesketh Mill on New Hall Lane being something of a landmark as you approach the city centre, and the gigantic Tulketh Mill – complete with chimney –…
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#617 – Lees Brook Mill 3 – notes on composition and creativity
It’s a few months since I posted about this place, and my attention has been elsewhere this year, so I’d forgotten that I’d started to write this! As I mentioned in the initial post, the catalyst for this visit was seeing this post on Instagram, and although I’d seen the mill when driving in the…
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#615 – Lees Brook Mill 2 – Reflections and other perspectives
Legend has it that Oldham once had over 360 mills chimneys – ‘one for every day of the year’ which meant that it had at least as many mills. Indeed, Oldham was the centre of the world when it came to cotton production – in 1913, 10% of the world’s production came from Oldham and…
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#614 – Lees Brook Mill 1 – getting going again and a new camera
I didn’t do much by way of industrial photography in 2022. I’d organised a 3 day trip to south wales in March to photograph a number of places for my ongoing coal and steel projects but then caught Covid on the day I was travelling and had to cancel all my arrangements. After that, other…
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#607 – Lancashire Rural Industry 1 – Cheesden Lumb Mill
This mill had been on my list of places to look at for many years, but it’s one of those places that is not going to be demolished (although it could just fall down of it’s own volition, I suppose) so has never been a priority to visit. This is another one of those long…
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#599 – The Art of the Panorama Part 3 – Mills and Mining
Unlike the steel industry with its vast landscapes, the mills and mines I’ve photographed are for the most part more compact, more upright. At one time when the cotton mills were the dominant features of the urban landscape of the northern mill town, it was possible to make panoramas of these dozens of mills and…
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#596 – A Return to Hartford Mill 2
I took a photograph from the Metrolink station on my previous visit (below), but it wasn’t that good so I didn’t do anything with it . In fairness, it was a truly awful day with heavy rain and high winds making photography difficult as I was constantly wiping rain drops off the front element of…
Mechanical Landscapes 