A Cotton Mill

A Cotton Mill

Gibson Cotton Mill

Now owned by the National Trust.and is a Heritage site.

History

Lord Holme Mill – to give it its official title – was erected in the early 1800s by Abraham Gibson, a Heptonstall farmer and cotton spinner, of Greenwood Lee.

Following his death in 1790, it was his son, another Abraham, who set in motion the changes which were to transform the family’s cottage industry into a much more ambitious concern; a factory was erected in the heart of Hardcastle Crags and manufacturing began in earnest.

Gibson Mill was one of the first generation mills of the Industrial Revolution. The Mill was driven by a water wheel inside and produced cotton cloth up until 1890. In 1833, 21 workers were employed in the building, each working an average 72 hours per week.

After it shut down as a working mill, the building became a mini holiday centre or “entertainment emporium” with a cafe, dance hall and skating rink catering mainly for day trippers who visited what became known as “Little Switzerland” until what seemed like its final closure in 1945.

“The family line was to survive for only four generations, however. Abraham the second was succeeded by his younger son, William, who in turn produced yet another Abraham, nicknamed “Young Ab,” whose death, in 1956, brought the Gibson dynasty to an end.”

“But his legacy was to have far-reaching effects on the area, for it was Young Ab, who not only left a considerable sum of money to local good causes, but, perhaps more significantly, willed his Hardcastle Crags acres to the National Trust.” (Milltown Memories, summer 2003)

Since then the mill and its surrounding cottages, in spite of their setting in some of the loveliest countryside in Yorkshire, have fallen into disrepair although they have proved to be useful venues for promenade plays and in recent years as the set for Dotheboys Hall in a film of Charles Dickens’s novel “Nicholas Nickleby

A Cotton Mill belongs to the following groups:

All About Water, Historic Places *2 per day*, Light and Reflection 1/24 and Treasured UK Structures (TUKS) Available for sale as

Greeting Cards, Matted Prints, Laminated Prints, Mounted Prints, Canvas Prints and Framed Prints