Industry

Oats Royd Mill

Established in 1847 by John Murgatroyd

The mill was closed in 1982

Lindleys

Lindley's Nut and Bolt works

WATER POWER IN LUDDENDEN DEAN

for an overview of mills as a source of power

Corn Mills

The first recorded use of a water wheel in Luddenden Dean was in 1274 in the Wakefield Manorial Rolls. This was for a Corn Mill.

Fulling Mills

The other early use for waterpower in the valley would have been for fulling and this was mentioned in xxxxxxx.

Fulling is a process used to remove oil and impurities from a newly woven fabric. It also shrank the fabric and helps the fibres to felt together to make a tighter, warmer and more water-resistant cloth. The fulling process was originally done by placing the cloth is a tub of water and for people to ‘walk’ on it (not an unsimilar technique to pressing grapes). Urine was often used to aid the fulling process, later Fuller’s Earth (Aluminium Silicate) was used to absorb the oils in the woollen cloth. In Scotland the process was known as ‘Waukin’, sometimes the process was done on a wetted board or table top with a group of women sat around the table. They would arrange the length of cloth around the table and would each use their hands to ’wauk’ the cloth, twisting and turning it as they sang a ‘waukin’ song to keep their actions in unison. In a fulling mills, the power of the water wheel was used to lift and drop large wooden mallets into wooden vat containing the cloth. Both the mallets and the vats had rounded edges so as not to damage the cloth.

Paper Mills

Paper mills use the similar hammers to a fulling mill to pulp cotton rags which once dispersed in water would be used to make sheets of paper on a wire screen. Cotton makes a much better, longer lasting paper than wood pulp paper which was developed in the 1840's. Wood pulp paper tends to yellow on ageing, so legal documents and other documents that need a long life are still made using Cotton based paper..

As a lot of the early mills in the valley originally made cotton cloth, it was an obvious place to also site a paper mill to utilise all the cotton scraps.

Textile Mills

Some of the textile mills in the valley were cotton mills, but swapped to Wool, Lancashire becoming the dominant producer of Cotton mainly because of it's closeness to the ports of Liverpool and Manchester.