New Lanark spinning mill: 'Once closed, it'll never reopen'

His lifetime of spinning and textile knowledge – rare in an age when cheap manmade fibres had obliterated Scotland’s wool production industry - had overseen the installation of 40 tonnes of complicated equipment once destined for the scrapyard.

Dismantled from the redundant Ettrick and Yarrow Spinners in Selkirk, it had been carefully transported piece by piece to the rescued 18th century mill village to become the beating heart of its story – a living example of the very process of making yarn that formed its foundations.

Alan Barrowclough, who oversaw New Lanark's wool production, stands in front of the spinning mule he installed at the site (Image: Friends of New Lanark)

It was around spinning and cotton production that social pioneer Robert Owen created his new model of village and working life: decent homes, fair wages, free health care, a new education system for villagers and the world’s first workplace nursery school.

And although the well-used but perfectly functioning machines would spin fleece and produce woollen yarn, the rhythmic processes – piecing and doffing, carding and twisting – powered by the force of flowing water from the Falls of Clyde, was just as it would have been in Owen’s day.

Read more by Sandra Dick: 

• 250 years of spinning history ends at New Lanark World Heritage Site

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For 34 years the spinning mill gave visitors to the World Heritage Site a fascinating glimpse into the now rarely seen process of yarn production and fulfilled the vision of Dr Jim Arnold, who battled to save New Lanark in the 1970s, and pioneered disappearing industrial heritage when few recognised its value.

All the components – the mill buildings, the education, the story, the machinery – came together perfectly and before long New Lanark earned UNESCO World Heritage Site status.

New Lanark's spinning mill is to close

At the same time, the old machines supported a highly profitable business: yarn spun in New Lanark had unique heritage credentials, was coveted by Chanel and English designer label Paul Smith, and provided tens of thousands of kilos of wool destined to become Harry Potter souvenir jumpers.

Indeed, it had such a fine reputation, bustling order book, consistently healthy profits and hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of stock, that he is struggling to digest news that it will fall silent within weeks.

New Lanark Trust’s four-man Board of Trustees – which has received millions of pounds of public money in recent years for the site's upkeep – say the spinning mill had losses of around £100,000 in just five years.

That, though, is at odds with the healthy profits Mr Barrowclough says he witnessed before leaving the mill just before the pandemic hit.

Indeed, he claims as recently as 2015-2016 the mill was drawing in around £70,000 clear annual profit, with bulk orders from significant customers: the Harry Potter link alone accounted for around 400kg of yarn every week, and orders often stretched to up to four tonnes of yarn at a time.

New Lanark's foundations lie in the industrial process of spinning

Certainly, accounts for the year up to January 2023 lodged by New Lanark Trading – the charity which spans the wool mill, visitor centre and now defunct ice cream business – show income from wool sat at £183,202 compared to wool-related expenses of £178,781.

Set alongside the site’s ice cream business, with its expenses of £110,017 and income of £89,136, the mill did not appear to be doing too badly.

What, then, has gone so badly wrong?

That’s a question Mr Barrowclough and others with a passion for textile production and industrial heritage have also been asking since The Herald exclusively revealed the spinning operation will halt in December.

Along with the loss of four skilled jobs, it ends 200 years of spinning history, has left Scotland’s small but growing wool sector reeling, and throws up questions over New Lanark’s claims to be a place of public education and social history.

As one Herald online commentator pointed out: “What ‘educational purpose’ is served by having schoolchildren come to look at a bunch of clapped-out machinery in a museum?

“Seeing the machines in action will be much more likely to stir the imagination of some of them to the possibilities of what these machines can produce in the future, and of how they also might be a part of that - the designers of the future.”

Alan Barrowclough, an expert in spinning machinery, says New Lanark's wool mill had been making a profit (Image: Friends of New Lanark)

Another suggested a visit to New Lanark without the spinning operation was akin to arriving at Edinburgh Castle to find Mons Meg removed.

Mr Barrowclough, whose first ten years were as a volunteer at New Lanark setting up and running the mill machinery before hired to turn it into a profitable business, couldn’t agree more.  

Hydro power was harnessed to provide energy for the mill's spinning operation

He severed ties with New Lanark Trust, which oversees the World Heritage Site with its hotel and visitor centre, after becoming increasingly concerned over its management.

A final straw came when the carding machine which held pride of place behind a £20,000 custom-built glass wall in the visitor centre was relocated against his advice, to a cellar.

In place, visitors were offered a Lego exhibition and contemporary art shows.

Soon after Mr Barrowclough, whose expertise has helped revive Knockando Woolmill in Speyside, learned his responsibilities at the spinning mill were to be diluted.

Instead, overseeing production and pricing of the yarn - vital to the mill's success – were to be handled by others who he claims did not share his textiles expertise.

They included the operation’s then finance executive and now chief executive officer, Iain MacKenzie, whose previous business interests include running car parks.

Unlike Robert Owen, who treasured the efforts of his employees, Mr Barrowclough says he left New Lanark without a single word of thanks for three decades of effort.

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A former technical production manager of a large spinning mill and one of the few people in the UK with decades of experience working with centuries-old mill equipment, he says he was ignored when he raised concerns over the repositioning of the carding machine.

“The carding machine was in the shop area behind a glass screen, but it was decided it should be moved and put in a cellar, in a damp and horrible place next to a river, which was a wicked thing to do to a carding machine.

Robert Owen's vision improved the lives of workers and their families

“It ruined the exhibition. It was too congested, crammed with machinery and the public couldn’t see it.

“Upstairs they made an exhibition centre in its place. The first one was a Lego exhibition that had already been in Glasgow and Edinburgh and was a complete failure.

“It’s a World Heritage Site. People go because they want to see what life was like.

“They don’t go to see Lego.”

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Having learned in an email that he was no longer to liaise with wool mill customers, he departed with a remarkably accurate prediction that within a few years the mill would close if it wasn’t properly managed.

“I wasn’t even mentioned by name in the email, just cc’d in,” he adds. “They were taking 21 years of responsibility from me, all the tasks I did were being given to someone else so I wouldn’t have anything to do with the wool business."

New Lanark's industrial heritage is at the very heart of its story - but its spinning mill is to close

He is baffled by claims the mill racked up £100,000 of losses in the past five years.

“I ran it for 20 years making a profit and it was a success with big name customers,” he says.

“Not long before I left, they were increasing my salary because the mill was exceeding profit expectations.

“Now it’s all gone pear-shaped.

“Once they have closed it, they will never reopen it."

He adds: "It’s very easy when working in wool and yarn to make a loss if you start making things wrong.

"You also have to be able to speak customers’ language.  

“They destroyed what had taken 30 years to build up.”

Yarn production at the World Heritage Site is due to end in December, although the site itself remains open.

A New Lanark World Heritage Site statement announcing the mill's closure said: “Consistently, over each of last five years, the woollen mill incurred significant financial losses, totalling almost £100,000.

“Having failed to make a profit for a long period, in 2023-2024 the woollen mill losses exceeded £50,000, which is clearly unsustainable for a small charity to continue to subsidise.

“This was not a decision we took lightly, and despite taking all necessary steps and giving the woollen mill several years grace to turn things around, we have a clear responsibility to the wider Heritage Site to run it in a sustainable way.”

Asked for further clarification, a spokesperson said: "We’ve given you two statements and don’t have anything further to add."

In recent times, New Lanark has been a venue for Lego and art exhibitions, makers' fairs and the Antiques Roadshow

Mr Barrowclough, meanwhile, says he would offer his expertise to the mill again if it could help it survive.

“If I knew where the problem was, I could put it back,” he says.

“If the Board of Trustees said to me would I help, I would say yes because I think so highly of Jim Arnold who put a lifetime of work into this.

“I feel that I would not want to let him down.”