10 Accrington to Manchester via Helmshore Textile Museum, Lancashire 3rd June 2011

‘Friends! Bloggees! Countrymen: lend me your ears.  I come to Bury’s centre, not to Prestwick’ (with apologies to Mr W Shakespeare)

Photos: https://picasaweb.google.com/101390618614769540246/HelmshoreJune2011?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCN3Y4deBk5avKw&feat=directlink

0820 I make an early exit from Scales Farm to cycle into Penrith to catch the 1003 tilting train to Preston.   It’s another scorcher and I have plastered myself with sun cream factor 30 in the hope of avoiding sunburn.  This time taking the more direct route along the A66 which I only now discover has a cycle path for most of it’s length I make it to the station in time.

With the Pendelino train there is a special door behind the engine where you take your bike so it is essential that you let a member of staff know so they can open it Dr Who style with their ‘sonic screwdriver’.  I speak to a nice chap called David (team leader) who gives me some useful advice to ensure that the door will be opened at my destination.

The plan today is train to Accrington and then cycle along a trail I’ve meticulously planned to Manchester Piccadilly to catch a train to Chester, visiting aTextile Museum at Helmshore on the way.   This seems appropriate given the county’s heritage and will take me through typical Lancashire countryside and town as well as giving me an excuse to exclaim ‘thas trouble a‘t’ mill’ at frequent intervals.

1019  I must say that the tilting action of the train makes for a very comfortable ride. Hats off to the engineers yet again! – ok,  I’m biased.

1027 The vista from the train over Kendal is rather impressive - the line is quite elevated at this point giving an unusual view of the town.

1039. Lancaster looks interesting and I was considering this as an extra stop at one point but the times didn’t work. A wide river and a Norman castle dominate the town.

1103 At Preston. I like the station - plenty of platform seats. Stone built with decor in red green and white

1135  Find myself on a rickety two-carriage slow train from Preston to Accrington rumbling through the industrial North West.  A young man sporting a huge plastic-strapped watch sits in front talking to his female companion.   The carriage is boiling – why is heat is being emitted from the radiators on a day like this?  With a noisy rev from the engine the train heaves reluctantly away from the station.

1155. Passing through Blackburn. From the train, it looks like a ‘tradtional’ northern town of red brick back-to-backs interspersed with neo-gothic churches and the odd office building. No tenement tower blocks that I could see; old and new industries rub shoulders.

1430 After a bracing, but easy, cycle on what is clearly an ex railway line I am at Helmshore.   The museum is run by the council and housed in a mill by a stream that was only closed in the latter part of the 20^th century when it's raw material (waste cotton and wool from other mills) dried up due to their demise. 

I do the usual museum tourist bit, standing in a group while the retired employee goes through his patter and demonstrates the various machines.  This museum is not as overtly political as the railway museum at Shildon although it is very clear that when the mill was working some jobs were men’s and others were women’s.  I eventually wind up in the water-powered fulling mill and being by this time the sole person in the tour get the whole 9 yards from the guide about the size of the wheel, how it has operated continuously since the 19th century blah, blah, blah.  After a big build-up she announces that she will open the sluice so I can see the fulling hammers at work.  With a flourish she inserts the handle and turns. I stand back waiting to be impressed, camera at the ready.  The sound of rushing water fills the room and the wheel starts to turn.... then.... with a loud graunch  it judders to a halt, and the aforementioned water spills out over the floor !....

‘Have you broken it? I enquire to the embarrassed and rather soggy-looking guide. 

'Don't say that!'  she replies, 'they'll kill me!'  We move on, whistling innocently.

The museum is a great place for picking up trivia:

·        Cloth was hung out stretched to dry on frames called tenters and held in position by... you guessed it - 'tenterhooks'.

·        teasels were used for ‘raising the nap’ which basically means scratching the surface of the cloth.  Teasels from the South West (Somerset) have better ‘hooks’ than locally grown Lancashire  ones.

·        Water was diverted from a spring through a pipe from half way across the hill for cleaning the cotton and wool because the local river used by the villagers was too polluted.  So – the polluted river water was deemed good enough to drink but not to clean cloth! 

and my favourite:

·        The mill purchased urine by the bucketful to use the alkali in it for fulling... urine from Methodist households sold at 2d per bucketful instead of the usual 1d because Methodists were teetotal so it was stronger!

1600 The museum closes at 4pm so I am on my way.  Again I have that sense of a one-time great manufacturing industry brought to it's knees and disappearing from the UK.  A clue as to why might be found in the plate on the side of the machines -  ‘made in 1923’.  So was there too little investment in modern machinery?  I stop to get some bottled water and push on.   The road climbs a hill for quite a way on its way South.

1656 After climbing for what seems like ages I have reached a place called ‘Ramsbottom’.   Is it me or is it ironic Lancashire humour putting' bottom' in a place name when it's right on top of a hill?

1715 Reach Bury.   The trail is interrupted by narrow gaps and obstacles as it makes it’s way through the suburbs which means I have to get off frequently, even though it is designated as a cycle route.

1815 Arregh!!!  Bury is driving me nuts.  The waymarks on the route seems to have disappeared and I keep going around in the proverbial....

2110.  Yes - three hours later.  What a disaster that was – remind me not to cycle through Bury again.  I never found the route and lost count of the wrong turnings I made.  I eventually had to resort to main roads which was not my intention.  I am now at Manchester and have missed my scheduled train by a mile. I won't reach the b and b in Chester before 2200 which is about 2 hours later than planned.  Plus, I realise, I am in the middle of Manchester on a Friday night: lovely place Manchester but maybe not right now!   An amazing number of clubs and bars appear to be packed, some even spilling out onto the street – everyone is just enjoying the fine evening.

2256. I finally reach the B&B only to find out that the land lady had not read my confirming email or received my increasingly desperate telephone voicemail messages and so was not expecting me!   This could have been the last straw but luckily I had taken a copy of my confirming email with me so she had no real choice but to find me a room.  Fortunately, there was a double room free which she let me have for the price of a single so I wasn't complaining. She is elderly and has recently lost her partner so I could not blame her. It’s not the Ritz, but after my exhausting adventures I was happy just to collapse into bed.