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STILL BOBBIN ALONG
A Tour of Stott Park Bobbin Mill
by
Barbara Ballard
Stott Park, with its 25 employees, was small
compared to some of the mills that employed 250 workers, but it still managed
to produce a quarter of a million bobbins a week and even made handles for
tools. That’s a lot of wood. Coppicing, explained our guide, consists of
cutting trees every 15 years so that many new shoots come from the old stump.
This ensured a steady supply. Silver birch, ash, oak, and sometimes sycamore
were used in the mill.
An improvement was made in this process in 1870
when an automatic drill with a 40 horsepower motor was introduced. This
machine, usually operated by a 12-year-old apprentice, could drill 2 bobbin
blocks at the same time.
We made our way to the second floor of the mill
where the bobbins then went for polishing. They were dumped on a small,
inclined, slatted wooden table and rolled around by hand. This polishing
loosened any shavings and bits of loose wood. Our guide pointed out the wood on
this table is, itself, smooth and polished from many years of use.
When English Heritage acquired the mill in 1991,
they found the steam engine needed only a new boiler to put it back in working
order. During the tour, my guide powered up the engine and set the machinery in
motion. History truly came alive at Stott Park Bobbin Mill, a living museum of
the Lake District’s industrial heritage. Essential Information:
Stott Park Bobbin Mill is open first April-30th
Sept.; daily from 10 am to 6 pm; in Oct. daily from 10am to 5pm. Interior by
guided tours only, lasting 45 minutes; last tour starts 1 hour before closing. Steam engine operates Tues., Wed., and Thurs. Entry 2.90 for adults; free for English Heritage
members Located in Cumbria on minor road ½ mile north of
Finsthwaite near Newby Bridge; southwest side of Lake Windermere; accessible by
Windermere ferry from Ambleside to Lakeside, then 1 mile. Parking, ground floor only for disabled English Heritage website: http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/
This site is consistently down more than it is up. You might also try the
following Cumbria sites: http://lake-district-britain.com/ldtsite.html http://www.lake-district-peninsulas.co.uk/index.html http://www.bta.org.uk/destinations/areas/cumbria/furness.htm ©Barbara Ballard. Reproduction of this work in
whole or in part in any media, including images, without the expressed
permission of the author is prohibited. The author grants Travel Lady one time
North American print rights only. Images by Barbara Ballard |
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An elegant
past—that’s what England’s Lake District usually brings to mind. But, surprisingly, that past was much more than scenic hills and lakes dotted with
pleasure boats. In the 1800’s the Lake District was the site of a thriving
bobbin industry with more than 65 mills in operation. 
While touring Cumbria, I took a small car ferry that runs from Bowness on Lake
Windermere to Lakeside. A mile down a minor road I discovered Stott Park Bobbin
Mill. The mill, in Victorian times, was a noisy, dusty place lit by paraffin
lamps. Today, thanks to English Heritage, who purchased the abandoned mill in
1983, we can see and experience this bobbin making operation as it was 100
years ago. The steam engine puffs, belts flap, and wheels and pulleys rattle as
tour guides give demonstrations of the original bobbin making process. The Lake
District had just what these mills needed—fast moving streams and coppice wood.
But it was the cotton industry’s development in Lancashire with its insatiable
demand for bobbins that got things rolling.
And roll they did at Stott Park Bobbin Mill. In 1835 a farmer, John
Harrison, inherited the site where Stott Park stands. He built the mill and
then leased it. After his death, the mill experienced several lessees until the
Coward family acquired the tenancy in the 1860’s, enlarging and improving the
mill. The family’s link with the mill lasted until 1971 when plastic bobbins
insured the demise of the mill. Its owner, John Robert Coward, abandoned it,
literally leaving everything in place. 
The wood was
carted to the mill—a ton at a time—where it was debarked. To accomplish this,
logs were placed on a “peeling horse” and the bark was hand peeled by ten
orphan children peeling 12 hours per day, 6 days per week. The children were
given no pay or education, only a roof over their heads and two meals a day. At
the age of 12 the boys were allowed to begin a five-year apprenticeship. After
peeling the logs, the wood was stacked in a drying shed for one year to season
it. Then the bobbin making process began.
Imagine
using a bench saw with no safety guards to cut the wood into short lengths.
And, being paid by the piece, a worker cut as quickly as possible. Different
lengths and diameters of wood were needed, depending on what kind of bobbin was
wanted. A fast worker could produce 5000 bobbin lengths per day.
A
machine punched out bobbin shapes. This process, similar to cookie cutting,
demanded a worker hold tightly onto a round block of wood while metal cylinders
cut out bobbin blocks with great force. The piece of wood got smaller and
smaller, and there was less and less for the worker to hold on to as the metal
cylinders came smashing down. There were no grips, no protection. One false
move or a slip of the hand, and the worker’s hand, not the wood, would feel the
force. Workers using these machines had the potential to produce 10,000 bobbins
a day.
Drilling
holes in the bobbins was a dangerous job, no matter how skilled the worker. My
guide demonstrated how the worker sat on a bench at a horizontal drill holding
a bobbin in front of him and then guided the center of the bobbin onto the
rapidly spinning drill. There were no safety devices and, if not careful, he
could drill a hole in the palm of his hand. Needless to say, mill injuries were
common on these machines.
Next it was time to watch the bobbins being cut
into their distinctive barrel shapes with the flange at either end. This step
was demonstrated on a roughing lathe. The rough bobbin then had to be dried for
48 hours, after which it went to the finishing lathe for its final shaping. 
This
skilled procedure required the use of knives and shaping tools to round, gouge,
cut, clean and bevel the bobbins. The particular combination of these tools
finished the bobbin’s final shape. There were so many different sizes and
shapes that the mill could offer hundreds of choices to customers. Spout
bobbins—round pieces of wood fastened to building walls, then to gutter
downspouts—comprised much of Stott Park’s output.
Finally the
bobbins were put in a wooden barrel with bits of wax for 30 minutes. Around and
around the barrel went, driven by a belt as the wax polished, filled in, and
smoothed holes in the wood. Out of the barrel and into a giant sieve the
bobbins went, and the excess wax was shaken off.
My
guide said that bobbins were then taken for final sorting and counting before
being put in burlap bags. They were tied in groups of 12, weighed and sold by
the gross (144). The customer was charged by weight as the sacks had to be
transported by horse and buggy to the rail lines 5 miles away, thence by sail
to Liverpool.
Power for this entire bobbin-making process was first provided by a 32-foot
water wheel ¾ mile away from the mill’s location. This wheel was replaced about
1858 by a one-metre water turbine, manufactured in Kendal. When the mill was
extended in 1880, a single cylinder steam engine, in use for 20 years at a
Yorkshire coal mine, was brought to Stott Park to keep all the machines
powered. Fueled with scraps of wood, it turned the wheel and drove the piston
at 80 revolutions a minute, generating 40 horsepower. After 60 years of
faithful service at Stott Park, the steam engine was replaced by electric
power, new to the area in 1940. Electric lighting for the mill was put in at
the same time.