Sunday Walks – From Weaver to Wearer
A visitor standing at the top of Hillfield Steps and looking over Congleton a 100 years ago would have seen a town dominated by textile mills and their chimneys. A contemporary visitor would now find it hard to imagine that for 250 years Congleton was a major textile manufacturing centre; the home to companies such as R.H. Lowe, Conlowe, Berisfords, Stott and Smith, Peter Wild, DeLux, Halsteads, W.H. Cliffe, Horrocks, Redfern and Rheade and Reade Brothers.
An early adopter of the use of water power for the spinning of yarn, initially silk, with the building of John Clayton’s ‘Old Mill’ in 1752 and later cotton with the construction, in 1784, of Richard Martin’s ‘Higher Dane in Shaw Mill; Congleton was at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution, becoming one of England’s earliest mill towns. By 1850, when Congleton had a population of around 10,000, there were over 50 textile factories of various sizes operating in the town.
This walk provides an opportunity to explore how an industry which began, as a domestic activity in the 16th and 17th centuries, came to dominate the town for nearly 200 years but yet by the beginning of the 21st century had almost completely disappeared.
If you want to find out more about Congleton’s industrial and textile heritage then join Ian Doughty for the next in Congleton Museum’s season of Sunday walks, ‘From Weaver to Wearer’.
Leader Ian Doughty
