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