NW Cotton Towns Learning Journey
Your guide: John Mortimer, author of "Industrial Lancashire" (1897)
Our itinerary:
Step 1: Liverpool to Manchester; Manchester to Stockport; Stockport to Ashton
Step 2: Ashton to Manchester; Manchester to Oldham; Oldham to Rochdale
Step 3: Rochdale to Bury; Bury to Accrington; Accrington to Blackburn
Step 4: Blackburn to Burnley; Burnley to Clitheroe; Clitheroe to Preston
Step 5: Preston to Wigan via Chorley; Wigan to Bolton
Step 6: Bolton to Salford; Salford to Manchester
Click on the steps below to explore.
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North West Cotton Towns Learning Journey Step 3
ROCHDALE TO BURY We take the steam tram now west to Bury, a market town of 58,000 people. John Kay, inventor of the flying shuttle came from Bury, as did Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel (1788-1850). Bury has good communications: the Manchester, Bolton and Bury canal was opened in 1791; the East Lancashire Railway in 1846. Bury's crest illustrates "a bee Volant, between two flowers of the cotton tree." Bury undertakes cotton spinning, weaving, calico printing, bleaching and dyeing, as well machine and paper making. Radcliffe also undertakes all the textile trades of Bury; Ramsbottom and Prestwich have cotton mills and Tottington engages in printing and bleaching. BURY TO ACCRINGTON (VIA ROSSENDALE) We travel to Accrington on the East Lancashire Railway. The Rossendale valley, a mixture of mills and moors, reaches a peak at the Top of Leach (1550 feet above sea level). The River Irwell has its source in springs not far above. Historian Thomas Newbigging estimates the Rossendale towns produce 68 million pounds of yarn and 210 million yards of cloth annually. At Rawtenstall cotton mills and weaving sheds are scattered among the cloughs, fields and low forest pastures. Here they make India and China shirtings, waste twills, shirtings, jacconettes, domestics and madapollams, they also spin wool and print calico. Breezy Haslingden is located on a stony, steep hillside, the mills mainly in the lower part of the valley, with thousands of looms and hundreds of thousands of spindles in evidence. We stop off at Helmshore, a picturesque place seen from the railway station with Musbury Tor and the dark curve of the moorlands behind it. Locals refer to the place as "Helshore", a play on words in connection with the process of 'devilling' the village excels at. At Helmshore they also spin cotton yarn and weave cotton, linen and wool cloth. ACCRINGTON TO BLACKBURN We arrive now at Accrington, the landscape less hilly and more undulating. Accrington was but two villages in the 1830s, with 5,000 inhabitants. It is now an incorporated town with a population of 40,000. Cotton is spun, woven, dyed and printed here, the latter especially important here. Walking down the main street, one gets the impression of being in a bright and brisk community, with fine stone buildings and pleasant recreation grounds. There is more weaving than spinning in Accrington, with 29,000 looms and less than 400,000 spindles. Fabrics produced here include jacconettes, cambrics, printers, plain calicoes, stripes, mulls, sheetings, fine twills, pure shirtings and dhooties. We take a steam tram car now to Blackburn. |
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