Historical #AdventureInLancashire

AN INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION #AdventureInLancashire

Now part of The National Trust, Queen Street and Helmshore Mills and textile museums offer an insight into the Lancashire’s industrial heritage.

Queen Street Mill

Queen Street Mill

Queen Street Mill

Featured in films such as The King’s Speech and Mike Leigh’s Peterloo, Queen Street Mill is a fantastic example of a textile mill, and currently the last surviving 19th Century steam powered mill in the world. The Grade 1 listed mill first began in 1894, when it was home to nearly 1000 looms and played a key part in Lancashire’s booming textile industry.

Today you can step back in time and experience how it was when cotton was king, as you embark on a guided tour. Learn more about the mill’s steam engine ‘Peace’, the coal fired boilers and the weaving shed, as you witness the sights and sounds of Lancashire’s industrial past.

Helmshore Mills

Helmshore Mills

Made up of Higher Mill, a wool fulling mill, and Whittaker’s Mill, a cotton mill, Helmshore Mills are in the beautiful Rossendale Valley and are the only mills to still have their original working machinery.

Come along to see how raw wool and cotton were transformed more than a century ago as you see first-hand just how Lancashire’s textile industry changed the world in this multi-sensory experience. Witness the spellbinding historic machinery in action as you are transported to another era.

Both sites welcome visitors from April to October and offer free parking. There are various facilities onsite including cafes, disabled toilets and flat accessible entrances.

Helmshore Mills

MORE ABOUT MILLS

Bancroft Mill

Bancroft Mill

Bancroft is a working museum open to the public with free entry most Saturdays throughout the year from 10am-3pm. Guided tours are normally possible on Saturdays depending on the availability of volunteers.

The Roberts engine in the main engine house, with its two cylinders and 16 foot flywheel could generate over 600 Indicated Horsepower when run at 160psi and originally drove around 1,200 weaving looms via its main shaft more than 260 feet in length.

Blackburn Museum

Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery is also home to the Lewis Textile Collection, gifted to the Borough of Blackburn by Thomas Boys Lewis in 1936. His textile collection was established to illustrate and celebrate the developments in cotton manufacture during the Industrial Revolution, and acknowledge the industry that had made him so wealthy.

The collection has been extended over the years and a proportion of it can be seen on display in the Blackburn Museum’s dedicated industrial history gallery, Cotton Town.

Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery

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