Scottish mills (a few, anyway)

I've been debating how best to share highlights from my trip to Scotland with you, and I think I've settled on a thematic focus. This post will be about the various mills we visited - there are four!

Verdant Works - Dundee

Our first mill visit was in Dundee, a port city on the east coast of Scotland. I know a fair bit about how industrial mills operated in the 18th and 19th centuries (this was not my first mill tour!), but I was surprised to learn that this was primarily a jute mill. It was originally built to spin flax, but since flax and jute are both bast fibers, the equipment was able to handle jute. The jute was grown in the Calcutta area (remember India was part of the British Empire) and then shipped to Scotland for processing. The fibers were both spun and woven here. Many grades of cloth were made. Much of the cloth was used for bags - remember, this predates plastic bags by quite a lot. Think about everything that used to come in bags - coffee, rice, flour. Some bags needed to be finer gauge than others. They also wove fabric used for sails, canvas used for covered wagons, and backing used in linoleum and carpet. The burlap I remember from my youth was probably made of jute!

The mill now spins a bit of wool, I think, but most of the machinery is gone. You can see how crowded the rooms used to be in the black-and-white photos on the walls here. They retained a few machines to show us how the process worked. Especially interesting was hearing the woman below speak. Lily was a Dundee "mill girl" who started working at the mill at age 15, and stayed until  it closed. 

I really enjoyed the tour of the office area (which is where we heard most of the history) as well as the mill itself. There was also a museum display that interpreted the place, social history, and the economy. The Dundee port would have been a very busy place in the late 19th century, with the jute trade as well as the whaling industry. It was also a labor stronghold in the 20th century.

I wanted to spend more time at Verdant Works. I'm a slow museum goer who wants to read a LOT of signage, and I was rushed along and didn't have time to see it all. That's the down side of being on a group tour, I guess!

Knockando Woolmill - Knockando

Knockando is a much smaller mill than Verdant Works and, as you can tell by the name, it is designed to process wool.  It is at least as old as 1749 and possibly older. Originally it was a "Waulk Mill" where fleeces and cloth were processed - the rest of the fiber processes (carding, spinning, weaving) were carried out by hand in homes. Cleaning fleece and "waulking" (or wet finishing) cloth both required lots of water, and that was difficult to do at home, so a community facility was built for those jobs. The mill is situated by a stream and the machinery was powered by a waterwheel.

Today, wool is both spun and woven here, as well as finished. This is the first time I've seen teasels on a drum - this is a prickly plant that looks much like a thistle. Here is a picture of teasels on a drum. It looks like nature's carding cloth, but the teasels are used to finish woven fabric - they bring up the nap.

This gem of a mill, with its many buildings, is still under restoration. I really enjoyed seeing the living spaces, too, and learning about social life here from the late 18th century well into the 20th century.

Ardalanish Weavers - Isle of Mull

Ardalanish is a newer mill. The present owners bought a farm to retire on, and found that it contained a building with industrial looms built around 1950. Since they had tons of sheep, they decided to keep operating the mill. Another fun fact: the entire farm is powered by wind. The room with the looms is both quite cold and very loud!

The farmers have Hebridean, Shetland, and Scottish Blackface sheep. They are shorn in the summer. Autumn is for sorting fleeces, which are then sent to Scotland or England for spinning. The yarns then return to the Isle of Mull, where they are naturally dyed and woven at the mill.

The farmer took some of us up the hill in his trusty Toyota to see the sheep and the view - we also encountered some Highland Coos! I bought some brown yarn here, which is spun from their Hebridean sheep, to make a sweater for S. Here are the Hebrideans and the Coos:

This morning at Ardalanish was a standout for me. The weather was outstanding and the farm was magical. What a day! I'll never forget it.

New Lanark Mill - New Lanark

New Lanark Mill was a huge, industrial complex built in the late 18th century, powered by the River Clyde. It's been restored and today is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. That's partly because of the mill, but also because of the influence of longtime manager Robert Owen, who was a bit of a social pioneer. His philosophy was that healthier workers produced higher profits, so he made a lot of changes to standard industry practice. He reduced the workday hours, required children up to age 10 to attend school (which he provided), ran "company stores" that sold goods at practically wholesale prices, emphasized cleanliness and hygiene, made sure all children were instructed in music and dance, didn't build a church, and more. Fascinating fellow. (Later he came to America and lost his fortune in a social experiment in Indiana.)

This mill was built to spin cotton. Labor was no problem, thanks to the Highland Clearances. The museum interpretation didn't really focus on this huge population displacement at the hands of landowners looking for higher profit; nor did it mention the source of the labor behind the influx of cotton to Britain. 

Today the mill spins only British, organic wool (but it is not breed-specific). We saw yet another spinning mule in action:

That said, the tour of the on-site residences was great, as was the Annie McLeod Experience Ride, which is kind of an electronic ghost tour.

Also, one of the vast mill buildings was restored as a hotel, where we spent one night. One of my favorite memories is sitting in the very deep windowsill in my room, knitting a sock and listening to the River Clyde tumble over rocks below me.

That's it for the mills of the trip. Other topics I could cover include: castles, knitting workshops, yarn I bought, and miscellaneous other stuff!