Report - Tone Works, Somerset - February 2013

[Montstar]

Back in August 2011, Myself, Kinger and Markymark drove past here after exploring Tonedale Mill but we were in such a hurry to find a campsite before dark that we didn't stop. BIG mistake!

After seeing more and more reports coming out of here over the past couple of years it made all of us sick with how much awesome we'd missed out on!

So... we finally went back! You know the score with the history, but, in case you don't...

The two sites in Wellington formed the hub of the woolen manufacturing 'empire' of Fox Brothers which had satellite factories in Somerset and Devon and at one period included cloth mills at Chipping Norton and Galashiels. In Wellington the company operated a 'twin vertical approach' manufacturing woolen and worsted cloth utilising all the necessary processes from unprepared wool through to the finished cloth. The legacy is a complex of Grade II listed buildings, arguably the finest being an impressive five storey former spinning mill block at Tonedale constructed during the 1860s.

Tone Works is of national importance as a near complete example of a 19th century cloth dyeing and finishing works and in 2007 English Heritage published a two volume report on the survey and analysis of the buildings, power systems and machinery. Significantly these veteran machines could be made capable of working and performing a function found nowhere else in Great Britain producing a fabric finish unrivaled by modern processes