Quarry Bank Mill Trip

Quarry Bank Mill Trip

On Thursday, year 5 visited Quarry Bank Mill as part of their topic work on the Victorians.

First we visited the apprentice house, where we learnt what it was like to be an apprentice at Quarry Bank Mill.  They started to write the alphabet on slates with chalk. Some children were shocked to find that writing with your left hand was against the rules in a Victorian classroom. Some children demonstrated how children would be punished for writing with their left hand by holding up some heavy weights for 30 minutes. We then got to see the apprentice house dormitories, where up to 60 children would be sleeping in one room, 2 to a bed. Upstairs, we saw the medical room, learning about how they cured all the children’s ailments in Victorians times before finally heading off to the kitchens to see what sort of foods they would be eating at the apprentice house: lots of lumpy porridge.

After the apprentice house, we went to the Mill where we learnt about all the dangerous jobs that children in the mill would be doing: crawling under the machines to collect wool, changing the spindles on the machines and carrying heavy containers filled with cotton around the Mill. for 8 hours a day.The guides showed us how the machines worked, and how incredibly noisy and dangerous they really were. Some children were able to demonstrate how the machines worked by connecting pieces of cotton together by hand, and strengthening the cotton by twisting it.

After a well-deserved lunch, we were taken on another tour: this time learning about how Mill was powered in a world without electricity. We saw the giant water wheel that was responsible for running all the machines at the mill and leant how it worked. We learned about the issues of the water wheel during draughts and then saw the alternative steam engines that were used to power the mill.

Finally we were shown how cotton was made before the mill was built, and the lengthy process of making cotton thread and looming together a piece of fabric.

Year 5 really enjoyed the trip, learning so much about Victorian life in a mill. Although they were all really tired at the end from such an activity-packed day, their behaviour was fantastic and many of the children can't wait to visit again.