Bobbins and Beauty

Th weather is starting to get colder and a few nights this week the temperature in the greenhouse has dropped to 4C.

On Monday I visited Stott Park Bobbin Mill at Newby Bridge in Cumbria. It was built in 1835 and provided bobbins for the Lancashire weaving and spinning industry producing up to a quarter of a million bobbins per week. Each bobbin was only used once, as if a bobbin broke when in use on the loom it would mean a break in work that would be very expensive.

Note the swill baskets full of bobbins

Sawdust in every nook and cranny

A bounty of bobbins

This is a map of the bobbin mills in Cumbria in their heyday.

Only Stott Park bobbin mill has survived

Different types of wood were coppiced and dried before they were cut into bobbin sized lengths.

Bobbin lengths with their first cut,the centre hole

Each worker was paid according to the number of bobbins they processed. Some workers kept a tally by putting aside one bobbin in 10 or used a tally stick where each notch represented 10 bobbins.

A tally of tens

The bobbin went through different stages of cutting to create the finished shape. Each worker was responsible for maintaining their own machine and keeping the cutting blade sharp.

This unguarded blade was for the first cut into bobbin lengths

Bobbin shaper machine

Bobbins were put in a drying room to dry the wood to prevent distortion.

Trays of bobbins

Young boys were employed to warm the wax which was added to the barrel in which the bobbins were tossed as part of the finishing technique.

This was the only warm area in the mill

The barrel was rotated to spread the wax

Finished bobbins were weighed and packed into hessian sacks to be sent to the buyers.

I do not think this sack is original

A steam powered boiler drove the machinery and the working conditions were very cold so the workers kept warm like hamsters. Wood shaving waste was waist high and they made route ways between the machines. With all the bobbins produced there was a huge amount of shavings.

The boiler

With the decline in England's textile industry the mill made broom handles, mallets etc and survived as a commercial mill closing in 1971.

This old fire extinguisher was in one of the buildings.

A fire extinguisher from a time gone by

I found this amazing fungus at  the Bobbin mill.

Lovely flowing shapes

Bubbly lichen

These autumn mornings are bringing some superb sunrises.

This sunrise only lasted a few minutes

Stupendous

This is my latest pottery achievement Nefertiti head.  

Queen Nefertiti  

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