Last Time

The end of an era for a piece of Lancashire's steam-powered industrial heritage.

In this amateur film record, we pay a brief visit to Queen Street Mill in Harle Syke, a small village north of Burnley, on its last working day. Workers still operate the looms and the noise is deafening, but finally the mill engine slows to a halt, the workers depart, and another thread linking us to the heyday of the Lancashire cotton industry is broken.

In 1986, Queen Street Mill reopened as a textile museum. Now the only operational 19th century steam-powered weaving mill in existence, the building is Grade 1 listed, and its collection designated as being of National Importance.