For visitors to New Lanark UNESCO World Heritage Site, seeing the mill buildings, counting house and hydro-powered 19th century spinning machinery at work is like taking a step back in time.
And for growing numbers of craft enthusiasts who cherish the beauty of Scottish yarn produced by rare breeds and with strong sustainability and tradition credentials, yarn spun at New Lanark holds special qualities.
Now both heritage and knitting enthusiasts along with wool producers have been left reeling after learning the site’s historic ties with spinning are set to be severed.
New Lanark Spinning uses a 200-year-old spinning machine with 292 spindles, which was salvaged from a mill in Selkirk. Wool sourced from across Britain, Australia and New Zealand goes through a process of mule spinning and cone winding, plying and reeling to become high quality yarn which is sold around the world.
Proceeds from sales are ploughed back into the heritage site, while the mesmerising spinning operation has become a key attraction and instrumental in telling the story of the mill and village.
Its closure in December with the loss of four jobs, ends ties with spinning at the site that stretch back 250 years.
The facility’s demise comes despite steadily rising interest in wool-based crafts: Shetland Wool Week has just ended with more than 1,000 visitors from around the world experiencing knitting events and touring yarn producers’ sites.
Filming is set to start soon on Game of Wool, a ‘bake-off’ style knitting challenge series featuring two of Scotland’s leading knitters, while demand for heritage yarns with a provenance label and sustainable credentials has seen increasing numbers of Scottish farms and crofts turning to raising rare breeds for wool production.
At the last count, more than 50 had been identified by The Journal of Scottish Yarns, a project to map the country’s wool producers.
They include family-run farms which have come to rely on the New Lanark spinning facility and its expert staff to produce their yarns.
One described the closure as set to have a “profoundly detrimental” effect and lamented the loss of skills to a sector which had been “on the up”.
A spokesperson for the New Lanark World Heritage Site confirmed the decision to shut the spinning facility within weeks and said it had followed an assessment of its financial viability.
New Lanark Spinning’s website, meanwhile, describes it as an “increasingly successful and important revenue stream for New Lanark”.
It adds: “It has taken 20 years of experimentation, training, rationalisation and hard work to build our expertise and get production to its current stage. We now have a good quality finished product that we sell around the world”.
Last year the restored 18th-century cotton mill village on the banks of the River Clyde received £2.3m from the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) as part of their Covid-19 Response Fund.
The site’s trustees indicated at the time the funds would be used for maintenance work on Category A listed buildings.
New Lanark emerged as a cotton-spinning village in 1785, when Glasgow banker and entrepreneur David Dale built cotton mills and housing for the mill workers.
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The mills used newly developed water-powered cotton spinning machinery invented by his partner, English inventor Richard Arkwright.
Although conditions for mill workers, including young children, were harsh, his approach mill offered a more humane approach than some competitors.
A consortium which took over from1799 saw Dale’s son in law, Robert Owen, develop an enlightened mill and village, with vastly improved conditions and facilities for the workers and their families.
By the early 1800s, it was Scotland’s biggest cotton mill and one of the largest factory sites in the world.
Cotton, wool and textiles were produced at the site until 1968 when the mill closed and the machinery was removed for scrap.
The New Lanark Conservation Trust began renovation work soon after, and in 1989 spinning machinery was sourced from the defunct Ettrick Mill in Selkirk.
It enabled yarn to be again spun at New Lanark, while the chance to see the water-powered spinning machinery at work became a key attraction.
Details of it and how to buy yarn produced on it, remain on the New Lanark World Heritage Site website.
The slow, gentle process of production is said to produce particularly good quality yarn which even has Hollywood credentials: it was used to create knitwear for Mrs Weasley’s character in the Harry Potter movies.
The spinning facility’s loss is said to be a particular blow for small producers who could send as little as 100kilos of scoured wool to be processed.
Susan Anderson of the Journal of Scottish Yarns raised her concerns about the spinning operation’s future on her Instagram page, and received a flood of comments from across UK, with followers expressing shock and describing its loss as “tragic”.
“At a time when increasing the use of natural fibres like wool, reducing the awful environmental impact of petroleum-based textiles which are polluting our land and waters with microplastics, Scotland can't afford to lose one of the very few fibre processors we have,” she said.
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“New Lanark is one of only two organic mills in the UK and is relied on by small businesses to turn fleece into yarn.
“I was hoping that if anything they were increasing their facilities to include scouring - washing raw wool before it can be spun and knitted or woven into textiles - which currently has to be sent in volumes to Yorkshire which preclude many wool producers.
“I hope New Lanark Trust will consider discussing alternatives to permanent closure whether handing over the facility to new management or in any way preserving the machinery and skills they are potentially throwing away."
At Annfield Farm in Fife, almost two dozen angora goats produce mohair which is mixed with Shetland fleece from farms in Cupar and Kinross.
Laury-Anne Boschman says: “As Scottish wool producers our options for yarn spinning locally are incredibly limited.
“New Lanark closing would be a disaster for the Scottish fibre industry and for farmers up and down the country.
“At a time where the demand for locally grown wool is increasing we need more access to spinning services, not less.”
“We must keep the knowledge, techniques, machinery and production in Scotland,” she adds.
“New Lanark has been a landmark of the Scottish industrial world for the past 250 years and needs to be kept alive”
Uradale Yarns, based at Scalloway on Shetland, uses New Lanark Mills to spin its organic wool from its native Shetland sheep.
It points to the mill’s long history, use of renewable energy, and slow production process which is gentler on the wool as key factors sought out by customers for its products.
“Uradale Yarns commenced in business 15 years ago with all spinning being done at New Lanark,” says boss Ronnie Eunson.
“Any closure will have a profoundly detrimental impact on our family business.
“Located in Shetland and specialising in Organic Native Shetland wool our production is sold worldwide.
“New Lanark is our only accessible mill. The staff are very skilled and very helpful.
“We feel very disappointed that these skilled folk are to be lost to an industry very much on the up.”
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He adds: “How the Mill can make a financial loss is beyond belief. The Trustees surely cannot be seriously considering the business competently.
“Robert Owen will be turning in his grave as this type of action flies in the face of everything he stood for.”
The UNESCO World Heritage Site attracts around 360,000 visitors a year, however a report published in 2020 suggested its numbers had flatlined against competition from other attractions.
A spokesperson for the New Lanark World Heritage Site said: “We have made the difficult decision to close our woollen mill.
“This will take place over a number of weeks as we fulfil the remaining customer orders. Regrettably, this will result in four job losses.
“This decision was not made lightly but comes following an ongoing assessment of the woollen mill’s financial viability. New Lanark is doing well as an attraction, but responsible management is vital to ensure all areas of the business can operate viably.
“We understand the rich history of the woollen mill in New Lanark’s story and will be keeping all mill equipment on-site for educational purposes, alongside the rest of our exhibitions.”
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