Tone Mills Fulling & Dyehouse, Wellington Feb '12

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mookster

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I remember ever since I first saw the reports on this place a year and a bit ago, I realised I wanted, no, needed to see it.

And so a little under a month ago a plan was hatched with Treadstone to finally make the trek down to Somerset and realise that thought. It was very nearly called off due to it being -10 in Oxford at 8.30am this morning but I persuaded Mr. Treadstone to wait an hour and a bit to see if it got slightly less cold - and so, two hours later than planned we were on our way, diverting into the local Oxford Halfords to purchase a fuse for the windscreen washer motor which had iced up and blown the previous night when it had gotten down to minus something ridiculous degrees Celsius. A largely fault free journey was had an 3 hours later we arrived in Wellington for a truly fantastic explore.

I'm sure many of you know the history already but here it is in potted form:

Tone Works was the dyeing and finishing works established by Fox Brothers and Co of Tonedale Mills, Wellington, at the confluence of the River Tone and the Back Stream. The site is shown on the Tithe map of 1839, and the works was enlarged and altered over the next 80 years. In 1912 the site was described as having "perhaps the largest Indigo Dye House in England". The site continued in production until March 2000.

If I could go back tomorrow I would, but the 3-hour journey is a killer!

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Thanks for looking, more here http://www.flickr.com/photos/mookie427/sets/72157629275091191/
 
They is some very nice pictures. The one with the teazel on the roller is something, are they real?
 
3 Hours for all that juicey decay i`d go more than once or twice to get all those. definitely worth the drive.

Wherever you are in the country this place is worth it - but get there quick, as pikeys are slowly stripping all the machines:(

It's still one of the best sites in the UK at present.
 
Impessive stuff - looking at some of the pics, one might think that the works had stopped mid way through production. Its as if they closed the doors one evening expecting things to restart the next day - but then they never went back.
 
Impessive stuff - looking at some of the pics, one might think that the works had stopped mid way through production. Its as if they closed the doors one evening expecting things to restart the next day - but then they never went back.

Apparently an inspection closed it in 2000, it's hard to believe that all this fantastic 100+ year old machinery was still in use all the way up to the Millenium, it must have been an amazing sight when it was up and running.
 
I used to trim and pack Teazels into the frames ready to mount on the rollers. Happy memories and bloody sore fingers. That was well worth the drive. Awesome.

They look mightily impressive with the hundreds and hundreds of Teazels in the lines, I'd love to see something like that in action:mrgreen:
 
it's hard to believe that all this fantastic 100+ year old machinery was still in use all the way up to the Millenium,

And that was the problem with the site, 100+ year old machinery operating with little or no guarding. The company made little or no effort to comply with the relevant Regulations.

The 1972 Health and Safety Act was the instigator of the slow decline of my late father in law's mill. Like all the Yorkshire woollen mills in the 70's, Castleton Mills used looms derived from Victorian designs powered by line shafting, which under the new Act required all the drive units to be guarded. The industry was declining and the financial cost of upgrading, to meet the ever demanding HSE, put what small profit margins there were into free fall.
 
Those teasels look amazing. The only place I'd seen them before was at Armley Mills Museum in Leeds. Didn't realise that fulling technology hadn't moved on very much.
 

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