The trip to Scotland was suggested by one of my oldest, closest friends. Bob wanted to see Glasgow and then the Highlands. But when I saw the M74 passing close to New Lanark I was in for another stop. Maybe it’s my Lancashire upbringing, but I never miss the opportunity to admire a mill – and I suspected this one might be quite something.
I wasn’t wrong. We arrived late afternoon and although it was a balmy day, there were only a handful of tourists – mostly foreigners, walking around and exploring. From the Top Car Park we climbed down a steep footpath to the main site. New Lanark is set in a deep gorge where the River Clyde flows, here beautiful and wild in contrast to Glasgow’s Clyde and its shipbuilding.
A few centuries ago this gorge and its three waterfalls (linns in Scotland) were famous beauty spots. The Falls of Clyde was visited by the Wordsworths, Coleridge and Sir Walter Scott. William Wordsworth wrote a poem about Corra Linn, the greatest of them; Turner painted it.
But investment banker David Dale – a major player in Glasgow’s burgeoning textile trade – saw less a source of romantic inspiration than a source of power. In the second half of the 18th century, as the cotton trade was about to take off, Dale saw an opportunity.
Together with the Preston-born inventor Richard Arkwright, who advertised his new water frame spinning machine in Scotland around 1780, he planned a new mill complex. Arkwright moved on to other plans, leaving Dale and his managers to build New Lanark on a site leased from a local worthy.
Four large mills were built along the riverbank, with water diverted from the Clyde via a tunnel and aqueduct to power a series of enormous wheels. Dale added housing for about 2,000 residents, while a planned village also provided a school, church and other social amenities.
You see all this when you reach the valley floor and the mills, workshops and counting house become visible. Constructed in cream sandstone with Scottish slate roofs, they were clearly built to impress. Trees and lawns provide some greenery in between and they have been pruned into wide paths, which is still a lesson in harmonious planning after all these years.
Later, New Lanark also became famous for its social enterprises. In 1799 Dale sold the mills to a company that included his son-in-law and mill manager, Robert Owen.
Owen was an experienced factory boss, with interests in Manchester – or ‘Cottonopolis’ as it was known. In New Lanark he expanded Dale’s facilities, delivering the world’s first workplace nursery school, along with fair wages, free healthcare and a new education system for villagers. He planted forests for employees to enjoy during their free time.
Owen was unusual in requiring employees to work for only ten and three-quarter hours a day and in refusing to employ children under the age of ten (if it had been entirely up to him, he would not have employed children under the age of twelve , but he compromised to promote the interests of his business partners). Owen paid his workers even when an embargo against the US during the War of 1812 closed the factory for four months.
He subsequently became an educational philanthropist and a leading figure in the emerging cooperative movement. Owen has been called the ‘father of British socialism’ and New Lanark was a testing ground for his idealism, but under his leadership it was also a commercial success.
However, times changed in the 20th century, which explains why the village is now home to a ‘Saving New Lanark’ exhibition. British cotton declined after the First World War and almost disappeared after the Second. In 1968 the New Lanark factories closed and 350 jobs were lost.
The mill buildings were sold to a scrap metal company; industrial heritage did not yet exist. But starting in 1963, a charity began restoring some of the buildings and turning them into rental apartments. Years of turbulence and debt followed, but once the buildings were listed, the New Lanark Conservation Trust was established to restore and revitalize the historic village as a sustainable community. Today about 200 people live here.
Today it is pristine and peaceful. I was able to roam freely and visited a working running mule, a mill worker’s home, Robert Owen’s home and the Historic Schoolhouse, where there is a ride where children can learn about the history of New Lanark in the company of “the ghost of Annie McLeod”, a 3D animated film. hologram of a 10 year old mill girl. There is a four-star hotel and visitors can stay in converted cottages close to the Clyde.
Despite all this, not everyone was impressed with New Lanark at the time. Robert Southey was Poet Laureate in 1819 when he joined civil engineer Thomas Telford on a tour of Scotland. They stopped to meet the famous Robert Owen.
In his diary, Southey describes the tour they were given and notes Owen’s “great courtesy” and the “thoroughly clean and so carefully ventilated” houses. But he did not approve of the factory system and compared it to a slave plantation.
“Owen is really fooling himself… His humor, his vanity, his kindness to nature (all these have their share) led him to create these human machines as he calls them (and he believes they are too literal) to make you as happy as possible. , and to display their happiness. And immediately comes to the monstrous conclusion that because he can do this with 2,210 persons, who are completely dependent on him, the whole of humanity could be governed with the same ease,” he wrote.
It’s an interesting argument, although perhaps Southey needed some less well-managed factories to balance things out. Lancastrians like me see our old mills as symbols of power and progress, but also of toil and injustice; many Pennine mill towns are in economic trouble, to put it mildly. I asked Lydia Housley, New Lanark’s heritage officer, what New Lanark meant to Scots today.
“For local people I think it represents a fascinating part of local history, both at the level of Robert Owen and his important reforms, but also at a more socio-historical level, through the lives of the villagers who lived and worked here . ” she said.
“We receive inquiries from all over the world from people wanting to trace their family history back to New Lanark and find out more about their ancestors who worked in the factories.
“I think the place also represents the natural beauty that makes Scotland so famous. Our local community often makes repeat visits because of the beauty of the site and their enjoyment of all we have to offer.”
I could confirm that after just one afternoon. The birdsong is louder than the hum of traffic. The vegetation in the gorge is lush and deep green. The monumental buildings are free from the tangle of TV antennas, satellite dishes, flashy advertising or pointless signage. New Lanark may be starting now, but it still feels like a hope-driven, forward-looking project.
Essentials
Find out more about visiting New Lanark at newlanark.org. Doubles against hotel costs from £85 for room only; cottages cost from £129 per night.