We got up today at 10:30am. We heated our pancakes in the toaster for breakfast. While we ate we watched a Voyager. Then D made us sandwiches for lunch. When we were ready to go, we drove to Derwent Valley Mills and arrived around 1pm.
The weather today is pouring rain, and the first place we visited was a completely ourdoor exhibit. Cromwell mills was built by Richard Arkwright, the inventor of a water powered spinning machine. Previous to this invention, spinning machines were human powered. The use of water to power the heavy machinery enabled the creation of factories and made mass production possible. Richard Arkwright is therefore considered the father of the factory system.
Above Cromwell mills is Wellesley castle, the home of Richard Arkwright. It is located on a hill overlooking the factory complex. Davin and I drove past and looked at the outside but we didn’t go in. It is now used as a hotel, and it was still pouring rain outside.
Next we went to Masson mill. This was a second mill complex built by Mr. Arkwright. It is a modern day shopping mall, but the basement level is a museum about the mill. Here we saw working looms that were weaving cloth. It was very interesting to see. We enjoy seeing the various kinds of machinery at work. The machines are incredibly loud, another reason why it would be a terrible place to work.
We drove south to the town of Belper to see one last mill, Strutt’s Mill. It wasn’t visually interesting, but the guided tour was very informative. We were impressed at how knowledgeable our guide was. She taught us about the history of advances in stocking weaving machinery. The first of these machines required a lot of muscle power to operate, so it was the man’s role in the household to weave the stockings. The women then sewed up the seams and put the finishing touches on the stockings.
Mr. Strutt earned his fortune by improving the original stocking machine. He invented an attachment that made it possible to weave the top part of the socks with the machine. The most interesting thing about this exhibit was that we were able to see the difference between the Arkwright water mill and the Spinning Mule. At the national woolen museum, and New Lanark we saw the Spinning Mules in action. It is the superior machine in terms of quality thread, but its wide range of motion makes it far more dangerous. Factory workers suffered gruesome injuries from getting trapped in the Mule.
Around 5pm we headed back to the hotel. Unfortunately, we got stuck in rush hour traffic. We also had to stop to pick up ice for the cooler and spaghetti sauce for dinner. On the way we found a store with sauce, but they were sold out of ice. In the end, we decided to skip buying ice because we would have to spend an hour driving to and from the far store just to get that one item!
We made it back to our hotel around 6:30pm. Then we watched a Voyager. At 8pm, we made the spaghetti dinner, and use up the last of our spaghetti pasta and parmesan cheese. We also watched some more Voyagers. At 10pm, D went in the tub, and I went next door to use the internet until midnight. I mapped all the places we need to go tomorrow, checked my email, and chatted with Scott.
Back at the hotel room, I dumped the leftover pancake batter because it had gone bad. Then I made one more batch of pancakes and cooked them all up. We finally made it to bed at at 1am.
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