All aboard for a futuristic journey into the story of New Lanark

lasers and swirling dry ice. For New Lanark conservationists, while

preserving the historic fabric of the world-famous village, are aiming

to attract visitors with twenty-first century ideas and a #1m visitor

information centre that will open in time for the summer influx of

tourists.

A major part of the ongoing renovation programme is at the Arkwright

and Dale mill and village, it houses an extensive reception area from

where staff will issue day tickets (#1.50 adults, #1 children, with an

alternative ''family'' ticket at #4.95), advise visitors on what is to

be seen and where, and supply information on the history of the village

and mill.

The centre also contains a vast, newly restored room, complete with

panelled gallery, that can be used as a conference centre, dining-room

-- or even a concert hall.

There is ample room for organised parties to assemble and, apart from

a little juggling of the fire door, visitors in wheelchairs will find

their mobility unimpaired. In fact this feature is common to all of the

buildings renovated to date, New Lanark Conservation Trust has taken a

great deal of care to ensure the exhibits are accessible to all.

The centrepiece of the visitor information centre, however, is the

Annie McLeod Experience, a fascinating trip into another age on what is

described as ''the most spellbinding ghost train''.

Up to 200 people every hour are conveyed in miniature cable cars

suspended just a foot from the ground. These travel slowly through a

darkened labyrinth in which the disembodied voice of the mythical Miss

McLeod, her image a stunning hologram which ''floats'' in the darkness,

gives a detailed account of her life at home, in school, at work, and

play.

The module floats past little groups of faces, workrooms, classrooms,

and playgrounds cleverly illuminated and made even more atmospheric with

the use of multi-coloured lasers and swirling dry ice. As each scene

changes, the commentary keeps pace, with ''voices off'' adding eerie

life to each tableau.

As a method of quickly appreciating what life in a cotton community

was like, the trip is a valuable educational experience, but thanks to

some imaginative artistic work by Renaissance Design it becomes much

more than that. The Annie McLeod Experience is not one that will be

easily forgotten.

In the Mill Three exhibition area there are more tangible reminders of

days gone by. A massive donkey engine is currently being installed on

the ground floor. It isn't part of the original New Lanark machinery,

but it is similar and dates from the same period. It should be puffing

furiously sometime this year.

A giant loom does run regularly, the flying shuttles being a source of

endless fascination for adults and youngsters alike, and again great

care has been taken to incorporate ''hands on'' experience rather than

simply present a series of formally presented materials.

There are examples of cotton and of the clothes they were fashioned

into, rolling blackboard-type graphic displays illustrating what was

taught in the village school and an overhead slide show and commentary

that runs non-stop adds yet more information.

Artefacts from the heyday of the mill are mounted on acoustic boxes,

the commentary describing their useage. This feature is currently at the

experimental stage: it may be developed and expanded later, the key

factor being whether or not it will be possible to keep these

commentaries at a low enough noise level to avoid disturbance while

still retaining sufficient clarity to facilitate easy listening.

There is a large tearoom, souvenir shop, and ample parking -- the

large car/coach park at the top of the hill provides a splendid aerial

view of the village, albeit via a steep path to the village itself.

To date something over #10m has been spent in the restoration of New

Lanark. The work is still going on and it will take millions more to

complete the project. Given progress to date, when that happens New

Lanark will become one of the finest examples of another age to be found

anywhere in the world.

The history of New Lanark, had it simply been an ordinary village,

would be remarkable in any sense of the word.

Today it is often assumed, wrongly, that it was created by Robert

Owen, the radical socialist visionary. It wasn't. New Lanark was built

in 1775 by Arkwright and Dale, two wealthy cotton trade magnates who

simply saw the Falls of Clyde as a cheap source of power, although Dale

was also a benevolent employer when compared with his contemporaries in

industry.

The water was needed to operate a new spinning machine invented by

Arkwright, a device that needed much more power than could be generated

in the traditional home environment.

It was regarded as something of a commercial gamble, but in fact the

mill took only four years to become the biggest in Scotland, drawing its

workforce from a local population that had swollen to 2500 by 1799. Many

of these people were Highlanders who had suffered a shipwreck en route

to America during the Clearances.

A year later Robert Owen arrived and quickly put some of his utopian

ideas into practice. He turned the village store into a co-operative.

Good quality produce purchased in bulk was sold to the mill workers at

near cost. Profits were reinvested in the village. In 1823 a profit of

#8000 was used to meet the cost of building a school. This joined the

previously constructed Nursery Buildings (1910) on the social amenities

list, the nursery having been designed to help improve the lot of

several hundred pauper apprentices who normally lived in the mills.

Owen forbade children under 10 years of age to work in the mills,

becoming possibly the first major employer to forego profit from child

labour.

David Dale, a deeply religious man, was the power behind much of

Owen's good works in that it was he who was the controller of the New

Lanark purse strings.

The two men were similar in many respects: Dale saw to it that the

orphan apprentices in his charge were looked after. They were well fed,

supplied with warm clothing, accommodation, and given a reasonable

education.

When fire destroyed the first mill in 1788, the workers were paid

until production could be resumed in a new building -- a remarkable

gesture in those times.

Dale's daughter, Caroline, married Robert Owen in 1799, with the

latter ultimately being given the task of carrying on Dale's good works

in the village.

An astute manager, Owen made the mills even more profitable, but his

international reputation was to be founded on his work elsewhere in the

community. The Nursery Buildings, Village Store, Counting House,

Institute for the Formation of Character, and the School were ventures

that attracted visitors from all over the world.

Eventually -- and perhaps inevitably -- Owen attempted to take his

ideas on to a bigger stage. He tried to introduce his philosophy for

social change into America, but the response was lukewarm. Owen

retreated into the trade union movement where his work would be most

appreciated. He died at his birthplace, Newtown in Wales, in 1858, but

his legacy remains today -- and nowhere more so than in New Lanark.