Saturday 1 October 2011

Stott Park Bobbin Mill

This is one of my favourite Heritage sites. Located in the South Cumbria it is the last bobbin mill surviving with all it's original machinery. I have visited several times and taken the tour, watching the turning machines peeling rough coppice roundwood down to round bobbins in second is a bit like watching a toilet roll unwinding at speed, just fantastic. This is a 20 minute film showing the whole tour you get when you visit and remarkably well shot for hand held camcorder. If you only have a couple of minutes drag the time slider along to 12.15 to skip the intros and get straight to the action. Look out for the swill baskets used for carting bobbins and blanks about.


Tour of a Victorian Bobbin Mill, Stott Park, Cumbria from Richard Elen on Vimeo.


The scale of the industry was huge, there were 64 bobbin mills in the area and each was managing hundreds of acres of coppice woodland churning out cotton bobbins for the Lancashire cotton mills.

And just a bit of nostalgia for those who made cotton reel tanks as kids here is a short film showing you how to make one.

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