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on the banks of windermere in the lake
district
sits a mill that played a surprisingly
key role in this country's
textile industry originally opened in
1835
stop park bob in mill supplied bobbins
to
thriving local lancashire cotton mills
and innovations in textiles production
at this time
propelled this into a highly prosperous
region in the industrial revolution
i'm rob bell engineer and adventurer
and i'm exploring some of the key
locations in england's progress towards
more modern methods of manufacturing
engineering and production and the
humble bobbin
was a vital component in the textiles
industry
and it's still in use today with a few
modifications
to find out more i'm meeting kevin booth
senior curator for the north at english
heritage
kevin hi rob nice to see you
what an amazing place this is i mean
absolutely beautiful coming inside
seeing all of this it is a treasure
i feel like i need to get silly
questions out the way first can you
explain to me exactly
what a bobbin is and and why it was so
integral to the textiles industry
bobbin it's one of those it's basically
just a piece of turned wood
it's the thing that is carrying thread
around
all sorts of different positions in the
textile factories of lancashire
and they'd be on every single machine
within the textiles industry across the
country in particular think of yorkshire
and lancashire millions of them had just
millions of them required
let's talk about the mill itself when
was it commercially operating
it was first advertised in 1835
but running from 1835 then pretty much
continuously through to 1971.
were there other mills similar to this
in the local area
we think in the middle of the 19th
century there's anything
up to 80 bobbin mills working in the
lake district at any one time
taking advantage really of the local
water courses
and using water power to drive the line
shafting
so there's a reason why this mill is in
the site
that it is absolutely it's here because
of the water but it's here
because of the wood it's here because of
a tradition of coppicing
that means you've got ready access to
replenishable supplies
of wood
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was the mill an integral part of the
local community here did it benefit the
local community
i think in some ways the mill is the
local community the cottages of
finsweight the village
certainly by the late 19th century are
occupied by
the bobbin turners and the sawyers and
do we know what the working
conditions would have been like in here
then for those local people
everything you've ever imagined was
shocking about working conditions in
victorian factories you will find a
stock park
whether it's the dangers of the
machinery and the close proximity to
line shafts rotating at 3 000 revs per
minute
to the long hours to the dust
do we know much about the machinery and
and where that came from
what we're looking at here is largely
machinery from the 1870s
though stock has machinery surviving
from its earliest incarnation
some of the you know hand-held lays
where you're offering
wood up to a tool to be turned whereas
here
we're able to use levers and gadgets to
bring tools into wood
and and make these things on mass this
is local machinery it's made
engineered by local firms they're
bringing the machinery the technology on
as the demand for these things grows
this was a time of
industrialization using machines to
increase the output to increase profits
well you talk about very skilled
men who can offer those tools up and
make these things
within a 16th of an inch accuracy over
and over again
to a point where their role is little
more just to move a handle
the whole thing's becoming much more
regimented and it's much more the sort
of tick-tock of time how many
can you produce in an hour in two hours
so why was lancashire so instrumental to
the textiles industry
that's growing out of using its natural
resource and its natural
geographic position manchester becomes
the place where
really royal cotton is funneled from
across the globe but particularly of
course the americas
into manchester to be turned onto
bobbins like this
into thread and then shipped back out
again for textile production
so the bobbin is this this small
but absolutely instrumental component
within this global industry then start
is sending things to melbourne
in australia status sending goods to
india they have
clients who ask for stock park bobbins
from across the world
and the machinery that's going across
the world as well
when did english heritage take
guardianship of star park considered
shutting 71
so we took it on i think in 1974 took 10
years
overall to conserve the whole building
opened again to the public in 84 we've
been making bobbins since
the thing about stock park is really
from 1870 onwards it doesn't change
they don't modernize they're not
bringing in new machines they're not
changing their working practices
we wanted to capture not just the kind
of physical sense of this place but also
the kind of memory of the people who've
been here and be able to
conjure that again for the visitors who
come through
and what work is being done to to
maintain stock park for
future generations to come and enjoy
it's quite a tricky specimen stop just
imagine what woodwind wants to do to a
place like this
think about the specialist knowledge
that you need to safely
run a steam engine or to know how to
sharpen tools
or even just to turn the bobbin to
understand wood
you know for english heritage it's a
real investment of time
it's a real passion because it is so
particular and so
special and requires skills that we
simply don't require anywhere else
across our portfolio
it's a unique thing for us and it's a
unique place nationally
it's so lovely to come and see all this
still in operation kevin that's the
thing for me as well because it's great
to see it but when it's
when it's working you can smell it and
hear it all as well
it's such a fantastic experience thank
you so much for showing me around it's
been a real pleasure
[Music]
during the industrial revolution this
region of england was
teeming with highly profitable textile
producing mills
but none of them could operate without
this
unassuming little item the bobbin
was and still is today a vital part of
working with a wide variety of materials
and i've learned today just how much a
whole industry depended on the
lancashire region
check the english heritage website for
more details
including opening times here at stock
park
bobbin mill