After todays Urbexing I thought I would do a report on the Dyeworks, but after being bumped up to Full Member I can see it has been done a fair amount recently!
Thought I would still post the report as it was drafted anyway! Hope thats OK!
Good to be here
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After my recent visit to Tonedale Mill (report here: http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=56967), it soon became apparent that this was only the tip of the iceburg!
Fox Brothers had a separate site to the main workings at Tonedale just down the road, and this site concentrated on the dying and fulling of the finished cloth from Tonedale Mill.
Amazingly this building has remained pretty untouched since work ceased in the late 90’s, and I would say that because the building is pretty unassuming and has no “Warning Security Patrol” type notices, it has kind of slipped under the radar.
Visited with Incognito, vwdirtboy, tommo, pretzel(spelling!?), his misses & my bro. A great day was had!
This site looks to have been originally water powered via a large waterwheel in the centre of the building, one of a cotton reel design. Not much of this is now left as can be seen in the pics. At some point it was obviously decided to swap to electric as the power source, although they still used the original belts and pulleys up until the closure of the site, there being two thundering motors in the power house at the end of the building. I have included a pic of one of these, but did not manage to get a decent shot unfortunately.....
Interestingly looking at the building, there is very little artificial light, opting more for south facing sky lights and painted white ceilings. I guess they did not run 24/7, although there is evidence that they would sew one roll of fabric onto the next to keep production running, as there are many portable stitchers laying around.
One of the most amazing machines (to me) is what I would describe as the “teasing” machine, which still has the original teasel magazines in it! You would imagine that these days things would be done very differently, and it is difficult to imagine these machine being used as recently as 10 years ago!
The motor (stripped of it’s windings!).
Teasing machine.
Thought I would still post the report as it was drafted anyway! Hope thats OK!
Good to be here
_________________________
After my recent visit to Tonedale Mill (report here: http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=56967), it soon became apparent that this was only the tip of the iceburg!
Fox Brothers had a separate site to the main workings at Tonedale just down the road, and this site concentrated on the dying and fulling of the finished cloth from Tonedale Mill.
Amazingly this building has remained pretty untouched since work ceased in the late 90’s, and I would say that because the building is pretty unassuming and has no “Warning Security Patrol” type notices, it has kind of slipped under the radar.
Visited with Incognito, vwdirtboy, tommo, pretzel(spelling!?), his misses & my bro. A great day was had!
This site looks to have been originally water powered via a large waterwheel in the centre of the building, one of a cotton reel design. Not much of this is now left as can be seen in the pics. At some point it was obviously decided to swap to electric as the power source, although they still used the original belts and pulleys up until the closure of the site, there being two thundering motors in the power house at the end of the building. I have included a pic of one of these, but did not manage to get a decent shot unfortunately.....
Interestingly looking at the building, there is very little artificial light, opting more for south facing sky lights and painted white ceilings. I guess they did not run 24/7, although there is evidence that they would sew one roll of fabric onto the next to keep production running, as there are many portable stitchers laying around.
One of the most amazing machines (to me) is what I would describe as the “teasing” machine, which still has the original teasel magazines in it! You would imagine that these days things would be done very differently, and it is difficult to imagine these machine being used as recently as 10 years ago!
The motor (stripped of it’s windings!).
Teasing machine.
