From Gunpowder to Greggy the Scrap

This project has many tributaries and keeping up with the flow on an even basis is proving to be a difficult one.  Over the last 3 /4 weeks I seem to have been following threads through research, snippets of information, contacts and interviews with people. The amount of information available and its relevance has to be assessed, do I only collect information useful and interesting to me or what might be potentially interesting to others and what is that........??
Reflecting at this point, my starting point was Somervell's book 'Water powered mills of South Westmorland' and therefore I am making an assessment of 'then and now,' what most interests me is what is to be found on the ground - out in the landscape, as it is now, looking for clues and alongside that the information I continue to learn about what a rural but industrial landscape it was compared with the tidied attractive presentation that now prevails for it has become a part of the tourist industry. Through half closed eyes I see what is hear now and also what was formally there during that period of local production from the 18th to early 20th century and at its height Victorian values, philanthropy, Quaker businessmen and Wars for which food, gunpowder and clothing were all produced locally by water powered engineering. Traces on the ground are supported by the research and conversation with those who have a great deal more knowledge than I.

Mill buildings that still exist as working buildings - the changes within those buildings and what they produce now, in some cases it bears no connection and in others it has evolved for instance the Bela Mills still produce combs but instead of horn they are plastic now, and yet at Abbey Horn Works in Holme Mills, they relocated there some years ago from Kendal, and are still working horn in  traditional ways- I will film there in the New Year.

Stuart and I visited Greggy's this last Wednesday, formally Gatebeck Gunpowder works. Brian Gregg the quietly spoken owner gave us his time and enjoyed the reminiscence of his Grandfathers days at the Gunpowder works-tales of accidents and the vastness of the complex works. His office was also the office of the Gunpowder works and much of the yard was given over to the cooperage -wooden barrels in which the gunpowder was transported and the tramway - horsedrawn carts running on metal rails from Gatebeck to Milnthorpe Station. 

The tramway from Gatebeck to Milnthorpe Station

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Man in the Moon -gunpowder wrapper

Greggy had some photos and on Friday I gleaned more information of labels and wrappers for cakes of gunpowder when I visited Norri to view some of Mike Davies Shiel's archive. Ian Tyler's talk  at HCM yesterday and the discovery that he had written an extensively researched and illustrated book on the gunpowder mills supplies valuable information for which I have not got the time and as Grayson Perry commented on his exhibition after a 2 year residency at the British Museum -'don't look to deep I am an artist not a historian'.
My plan is to visit every site that Somervell named and photograph what is there now and as such I am  about half way through this task.
What struck me about about Greggy's was the order and organisation of the scrap,  alongside Peasey Beck cars in the process of being disemboweled, regimented and silent as they rest on bald rubber towers, autumn leaves falling about and hens scratting here and there. Inside what was part of the cooperage works his living archive of radiators, headlamps, batteries etc etc wait on ordered shelves for the next phase of their useful life.
Gunpowder was used for fog lamps on the railway and supplied Standard fireworks now from this same site engines and parts for European cars are exported to Poland and Hungary on a regular basis.

From jute to coco nut to plastic to tufted carpet to closing down.

 There are two mill ponds in Holme the first is created by a spring which comes underground from Farleton Fell this flows under the road to create the second pond which fed the mill. The site must have been chosen because of the water supply for records show that a mill has existed here since the 12 C, though now it makes no input into the production of the light industrial businesses that  occupy the site. Formally a corn then flax mill -and at that time a further mill was built and existed for a time on the right bank of the canal in the middle of the village -this buildings short history has not yet revealed itself to me. Holme Mills changed  products again when it moved over to the production of jute and coco nut matting- the demise of this product, the change to plastic matting and then after the fire to tufted carpet in the early seventies sealed its fate and Bowater Scott shut the site and it was sold off in 1976.

Geoff Pegg of Holme History Society has collected together from local sources a wonderful archive on the mill- he has very kindly given me access to it - it will be available for all to see as part of the Heron Corn Mill archive.
Mike Prill, the son of Everard the last manager under Goodacre's, has written an extensive history of the mill, there are registers, doctors reports and accident book entries along with some great photos of the assembled work force and arrangements on flat bed wagons of all the products.

Now it is an active light industrial estate but it holds an echo of the products of Bela Mill in Milnthorpe which under the Dobson family made finely cut horn combs. Abbey horn works relocated here from Kendal with products  belonging to that pre-plastic era.

All year round the mill ponds are alive with wild birds as many as 37 swans were counted sheltering there  during last winters very cold weather. Birds come inland from Leighton Moss during stormy times and  the Herons from Dallam come fishing here for duckling. How the bird life has changed it would be interesting to find out!

We do not idly waste our time.

Mavis Gibson a volunteer at Heron Corn Mill  had heard of a photograph of 2 girls, Lily and Grace in a rowing boat on Lupton Mill sometime before WW2.
Grace and husband John have retired to  Sandside, Grace was happy to talk on film about her memories of life in the mill. Grace talked enthusiastically of hard work and happy times before and during the war of grain arriving from Liverpool docks at 3 am, rising,  unloading and starting the drying and turning of the grain. Graces memories of mill life  will be part of the archive -the photograph we have yet to track down. I asked Grace if she had any memories of songs or poems and she immediately recited this.

We do not idly waste our time

As we lifes tasks fulfill

The flowing river is not lost 

If it but turns the mill.

Items in Ephraim Chambers Fathers will.

 Richard Chambers goods and chatels.
Apparel
Goods moved from house loft on death
Knives and forks
Pillow  boards and blankets
Two ------- of  Curtains with some bedding
a-------- and a -------
Clock and Kase
A chest of drawers  and a box
A chest and other things
Bedding in the parlour
Two little tables
A table and  a chest
Four little stools
Chairs
Pots, pans brass
Potts, striking knife
------------------- tongs and fender
A brass pot and pans
Six pewter dishes
------- plaits candlesticks and spoons
Glass bottles and             potts
Wooden vessel
Barkboard ------- ------
A pair of forks and winnowing -----
Two looking glasses
A silver headed coin
Two  maps
Seven book in folio
Seven books in quarto
Two large bibles
Books in Octavio
School books
School napkins
A chest
Two tables
Debts owing to the ---- upon bond

Ephraim Chambers

What an exciting discovery that Ephraim Chambers the father of 'cyclopaedia' was born at Milton and educated at Heversham Grammer School- this find was an inspiration and link for me in my interpretation of 'A river runs through it'  which will be a collection of information known to me at a point in time.

'To live is to leave traces' Walter Benjamin- Berlin Chronicle.
How true -we all do but interpreting and presenting the traces of others through the eyes of the artist is an individual experience where I connect new experience with previous knowledge thus forming new networks, archives, collections and maps of the mind. Making all this material for others to access involves symbols and systems of interpretation.

The Reina Sofia Gallery in Madrid presented the exhibition 'Atlas'  the work of Aby Warburg 'a territory where images rule and words are superfluous, where the conventional timeline has been replaced by a kind of cross section of time, a journey back and forth between past and present, a journey on which we have been invited along not as mere spectators, but as alert participants on the construction of our own histories and identities'.

For me this illustrates the artists interpretation of past and present, engaging the viewer and his world  as opposed to the historians orderly lists of names, events and dates.

Images doors in Holme Mills

Spin off

Spin Off - Audreys observations-a perceptive and humorously written play about life at  the Bobbin Mill has been a joy to work on and clearly illustrates what is the essence  of being a part of a work force and knowing something from the inside -both physically and emotionally.
The cast came together, not knowing one another and established relationships through their characters they developed and made their own.
Life at the bobbin mill was very hard - bonds, pecking orders and confidences, the secrets and intrigue of mundane daily life kept the group together and apart within their togetherness.
My observations lead me to conclude that

1. Experience ingrained at a young age is formative to the rest of your life
2. Good direction links writer, actors and crew.
3. Working with a common purpose - without knowing anything about the rest of other peoples lives is refreshing and freeing.
4. Interpretation through the arts brings history to life.
After the final performance tonight, all will leave enriched by their own achievement with a gap in their lives to fill with daily life again.

Finding people with first hand experience and interesting stories is part of my quest with  'A river runs through it'. The Westmorland Gazette and all Parish newsletters have been contacted -I await a river of
 links and suggestions to follow up - with research and you never know when or where you will get that piece of information that reveals ............. if you know anyone with links to the river please put them in touch with me.

Very photogenic

 You don't need a particular reason to visit Heron mill ....try it!

Time warp

Today Rowena and I explored 4 mill sites. 

 

Two are now houses, one is a garage where I take my car for its MOT, the lift being positioned right where the mill wheel would have been -a brick shadow high up on the wall blocks where the head race once tumbled through the wall onto the wheel. The fourth site took us back to the past, a silent and still  wheel with wooden buckets like sieves surrounded by the equipment associated with milling and on upper floors rusting bicycles and children's ride in toy cars from the 50's onwards. Nearby glass milk bottles in their metal carrying basket, butter churns, dishes for  preserving eggs  in Isinglass, milk kits and milking equipment all wait on the floor, put on oneside as they were no longer needed in and around the 3 floors of well worn and oiled quiet cogs.  

 

Grist to the Mill

From hopper

At Heron Corn Mill the stones, wheels, cogs, teeth, belts and woodwork have been restored by the experienced hand and eye of Martin Watts, Stuart the apprentice millwright has enjoyed this learning curve and know the day has come to turn wheat into flour  on redressed stones. It is raining cats and dogs outside, the eager water rushes down the launder and turns the wheel. The mill comes to life, grain is poured into the hopper, the stones whirr and crush and the fine flour is delivered in even pulsing shots into the sack,  an air of apprehension has turned to relief and excitement, the whole building is alive with movement and sound, differing rhythms hum and chatter throughout. There is something very comforting about the mill in motion, you physically and mentally become part of the experience it takes over your body and senses.   

to sack!

Bob Parkin arrives - he maintained  Pye's Mills and farms for over 30 years.
We sit down for the first of our Time Share sessions over sandwiches and flapjack the conversation ranges through the location of mills, the status of millers, water rights, sustainability and the restoration of the mill.

                                                           Wow! feel the quality  Stuart

     Grist from the mill!

Finding the source-looking for threads

The story so far.

During the research stage of this project when we were looking at the potential for 'A river runs through it', I visited the Kendal records office and the libraries local collection also the Armitt library in Ambleside.

Together with Audrey -the mill manager, Stuart the millwright, Bob Parkin one of the trustees and Jill Wesson the daughter of the late  Percy Dobson who formally owned and ran the Comb Mill at Milnthorpe as a horn comb works and then moved over to plastic, we visited the present working plastic comb mill. 

 

This initial research gave us [ Heron Corn Mill and myself]  the confidence to know that there was much to be revealed during this 12 mth project.

The project started the week of the 25th July, already Audrey and I  engaged with Beetham villagers on a hot sunny Saturday selling bags of flour milled at Little Salkeld  at the Annual Sports Day- telling them aboout the project and asking people if they had memories or photographs of  Heron Corn Mill or others. Yesterday Stuart and I explored the outfall from Killington Lake, the Bela River starts its life as Peasey Beck rising on Lambrigg Fell and flowing into Killington Lake. We made our way back down the lanes looking at possible sites for remnants of  past mills. John Somervell's book 'Water  powered mills of South Westmorland was our inspiration and source material for mill sites.