Bottom Mill - June 21

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BikinGlynn

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Bottoms Mill

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Originally built in the 1820s, Harpin or Bottoms Mill is one of Holme Valley's oldest mills. The iconic, 150ft red chimney was added in 1911 and acts as a landmark to this day. The mill relied on water from the River Holme, which was channelled via a narrow watercourse, known as a goit, into the Bottoms Mill pond.

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In 1852 the valley this water was nearly its downfall as it was overun by flooding. The Mill, then occupied by Messrs. Barber & Co., as a woollen mill lay directly in harms way.
Here the country widens out, and consequently the waters became more spread; but still the mill, which stands in a central position, was damaged but no lives were lost, though the inmates of three cottages adjoining had a very narrow escape from death.
The alarm having been given, the inmates of the house nearest the river, seeing the danger, burst through the parpoint walls, and got into the house farthest off, where a ladder was got and placed against the chamber window, from which all the inmates succeeded in escaping; but scarcely had they reached the road when the whole pile fell with a loud crash, and was swept away by the resistless torrent.
Here, also, five workmen had miraculous escapes. It was usual for the fullers to sleep in the mill, and in Bottoms Mill there were five of them, who were aroused from their sleep by the loud noise and crashing of machinery. They rushed upstairs, and succeeded in climbing upon the rafters; but even here they were pursued by the relentless waters, and for upwards of an hour they were nearly covered, but after that time the waters subsided, and they all escaped.

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Half of the mill is currently occupied by businesses still but half lays dormant. Not a lot else to say other than it was a fun explore & was a very photogenic place so lots of pics from this one.

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The not so abandoned bit

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Thanks For Looking
 
Nice one Glynn, in fact I think this one has been kept on the down-low thanks to the active side, and also the reaction of the owner if you happen to bump into him. Thankfully we didn't when I got the chance to see it.

Cuban - it was a yarn dyeing business, and they dealt with quite a few firms up here including BMK Carpets and Rennies of Mintlaw plus Bonar Textiles from Dundee as well.
 
Nice one Glynn, in fact I think this one has been kept on the down-low thanks to the active side, and also the reaction of the owner if you happen to bump into him. Thankfully we didn't when I got the chance to see it.

Cuban - it was a yarn dyeing business, and they dealt with quite a few firms up here including BMK Carpets and Rennies of Mintlaw plus Bonar Textiles from Dundee as well.

Yeah didnt want to be putting it out there really but I have been told its pretty well sealed now.
wasnt gonna post it public but apparently its well enough know now anyway.
 
Great photos. But jealous. Seems more of these in the middle or Yorkshire. Is there a mill like this in North West England or are they all wrecked up here? (or am I just lousy at finding ...) eckersley and rylands and others have been amazing. But we get there long after the fabric has been burned, the tools stolen, and the units smashed. I mean, that neat bundle of papers on the desk? Epic. Never seen that on an explore yet...
 
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Great photos. But jealous. Seems more of these in the middle or Yorkshire. Is there a mill like this in North West England or are they all wrecked up here? (or am I just lousy at finding ...) eckersley and rylands and others have been amazing. But we get there long after the fabric has been burned, the tools stolen, and the units smashed. I mean, that neat bundle of papers on the desk? Epic. Never seen that on an explore yet...

nowt tup north mate lol
 
Terrible to see the decline of our country.. Just glad that you lot manage to document a lot of it before it is gone forever..

john..
I agree, but it's not all down to this country's decline - part of the work that this mill did was dyeing carpet yarns - nowadays there's less demand for carpets because people choose vinyl, lino and laminate flooring.
 
I agree, but it's not all down to this country's decline - part of the work that this mill did was dyeing carpet yarns - nowadays there's less demand for carpets because people choose vinyl, lino and laminate flooring.
True, but what is still needed could be made in the UK rather than the Far East.
 
I agree, but it's not all down to this country's decline - part of the work that this mill did was dyeing carpet yarns - nowadays there's less demand for carpets because people choose vinyl, lino and laminate flooring.
By chance I am reading a detective novel set in 1929 (three years after the end of the General Strike) but written in 2009. Called "The Body on the Train", it is set around Ardsley and Leeds in Yorkshire, and involves local families who are coal mine and woollen mill owners. A mill goes onto short time working because of a lack of orders, and new machinery is to be brought in for weaving new fabrics
then replacing traditional heavy woollen products. The current move away from carpets is just the latest in a series of changes that started with the Industrial Revolution.
 
The current move away from carpets is just the latest in a series of changes that started with the Industrial Revolution.
Yep, it's what Joseph Schumpeter called the creative destruction of capitalism, businesses are built up on the back of new inventions and products, then destroyed when they're superseded. Before the Industrial Revolution there would have been far fewer derelict places to explore, just things like ancient ruins from the Roman Empire, and monasteries dissolved during the Reformation.
 
Can't answer an existing topic, what should I do ??
Maybe I'm not writing correctly?
Please help.
Yours faithfully.
 
Quoting "Good and evil cannot be equal. Respond ˹to evil˺ with what is best, then the one you are in a feud with will be like a close friend" from the Koran requires definitions for 'good and 'evil'. The events on 11th September 2001 in the USA did little to result in "the one you are in a feud with will be like a close friend". Likewise, on Easter Sunday 2019 in Sri Lanka when a friend of mine (an old woman still recovering from a horrendous road traffic accident that killed her husband and her son) was one of those murdered simply because she was a Christian. In her case, the bomber was "in a feud" with total strangers for the sole reason that those strangers were practising a religion different from his own. I presume the killer saw 'good' in what he did, even if it meant his own suicide.
 
Yep, it's what Joseph Schumpeter called the creative destruction of capitalism, businesses are built up on the back of new inventions and products, then destroyed when they're superseded. Before the Industrial Revolution there would have been far fewer derelict places to explore, just things like ancient ruins from the Roman Empire, and monasteries dissolved during the Reformation.
It has been said there are two types of capitalism: private capitalism and state capitalism. In both cases, the 'capital' is the economic wealth of a country. In the former, it is commercial businesses and companies that are behind that wealth; in the latter it is a government's departments running 'the means of production and distribution'. In the UK we were close to state capitalism between 1945 and 1950, with the nationalisation of major industries.

Over the centuries/millennia, improved building techniques led to demolishing the old and replacing it with the new. The Great Fire of London - well before the start of the Industrial Revolution - resulted not just in destruction by fire, but also in the demolition of much of the stock of wooden houses and businesses, and their replacement by stone or brick buildings; an early example of government-inspired 'health and safety legislation"? I imagine over the centuries of the Roman Empire, towns and cities were rebuilt as the Empire's wealth allowed. State capitalism?
 
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