Quarry Bank Mill

We got down with the National Trust again this weekend and visited Quarry Bank Mill.  We were greeted by a strict lady who I presume must have been an ex-school mistress.  She told us we had to leave the trike with her and that it would be pointless in doing anything other than visiting the Mill and the Gardens.  If she hadn't have been exactly right I might have got a little upset with her, who was she to tell us what to do?  However I concurred and inside I applauded her emotionless yet concise and wise suggestion.

During the visit we touched cotton (that is no relation of the phrase “I’m touching cloth here!”) in its raw form and saw cotton plants.  Previously I’ve reported to folk that the cotton grass on the moorland of Lancashire is a result of the cotton trade during the industrial revolution.  It isn't!  Cotton grass has been here for a long time.  And although our cotton grass has in the past been used for stuffing pillows and binding wounds it isn't suitable for producing cotton.  That goes to prove that the things we know as fact today may not be fact in the future.  I’m pretty sure that I didn't glean the information from either a liar or trickster, I think it was Countryfile ages ago, and indeed QI talks about this ratio of facts today turning into inaccuracies.  Any road I take it back.

We watched noisy looms and Piggy saw the biggest wheel he had seen to date, a very much working water wheel.  Fred Dibnah must have rubbed off on me (rather Dibnah than Savile!!) because being in the engine room makes me feel good.

We then walked the gardens.  Kerry is getting very knowledgeable on the names of flowers and what the engine room is to me the garden is to her.

What a lovely place.

"Piggy and the Window"

"Piggy and the Wheel"

"Quarry Bank Mill"

"Under the Gunnera"