Woollen Mills in Paignton area?

[Geordie daughter]

Thanks for the pic, Mowsehowse! Did you get curious looks when you were taking the photo?

[Mowsehowse]

Thanks for the pic, Mowsehowse! Did you get curious looks when you were taking the photo?

I am not sure if there was anyone home at 95, but an elderly lady at 91 was eager to know what was going on, and very pleased to tell me about the wonderful sea views from her garden.     

[Geordie daughter]

I should imagine you made her day, having someone to talk to! Years ago, when we were in Lancashire, there was a power cut in our row of terraced houses one evening, so we went to check on the neighbour next door as we'd been told she was elderly and not able to get about very well. It turned out she was in her nineties and had worked in one of the local cotton mills in the 1920s or 30s. She invited me in for a cuppa and a chat the next day and had some fascinating stories about the area to tell me. I only wish we'd met her sooner, as we moved away not long afterwards.

[Mowsehowse]

Seems a shame you moved away quite soon, but at least she did have your company for a while. 

[bolttail]

Hi 'Geordie Daughter'. I worked for the Weights and Measures Department (later renamed Trading Standards) in the late sixties and covered the South Devon area roughly west of the Teign. This work involved visiting most trade premises on a regular basis. My only visits to any textile mills were at Buckfast and Buckfastleigh. The premises at Buckfast were adjacent to the Abbey and were quite large. There were many looms running in the sixties and the noise level inside was horrendous. The other premises were, as far as I can remember, were just of the main street in Buckfastleigh, but I have no memory as to what they were producing. One of the locations was certainly involved in fellmongering, that is the cleaning of the wool and the production of lanolin as a by-product.

There was an old mill like building at Harbertonford which at that time was the premises of an agricultural merchant. My thoughts were that it was an old grain mill, but I could have been wrong.

I worked the Paignton area in the early seventies and certainly never came across anything that looked like it might have once been textile mill. I would be very surprised to learn of there ever having been any textile mills in Paignton. I'm no expert, but they generally grew up adjacent to rivers as the trade uses a lot of water. Paignton is noticeably short of a suitable river.

I think the most likely option is that your loom tuner worked at Buckfast. OK, it's twelve miles from Paignton, but I don't think this would be too difficult a daily journey, even in 1939.

[Mowsehowse]

QUOTE "I would be very surprised to learn of there ever having been any textile mills in Paignton. I'm no expert, but they generally grew up adjacent to rivers as the trade uses a lot of water. Paignton is noticeably short of a suitable river."

Thank you for that Bolttail, that was my feeling, (due to lack of river,) but I am not native to this area, and didn't want to stick my neck out.  I have read a lot about the local history, and apparently the main work in Paignton was growing cabbages and making baskets from the rushes growing in the marsh land. I don't recall any mention of water mills actually in Paignton, though there are remains of windmills.

[bolttail]

I'm waiting for a flurry of replies from folks whose great grandparents worked sixteen hours a day in the Paignton Wool Mill for 4 pence a week and a dry crust of bread every other Christmas.

[Mowsehowse]

I'm waiting for a flurry of replies from folks whose great grandparents worked sixteen hours a day in the Paignton Wool Mill for 4 pence a week and a dry crust of bread every other Christmas.

   To be fair, I think they would probably have been given a feast at Christmas, just starved the other 364 days!! 

[Geordie daughter]

Thanks Bolttail. That's what puzzled me when I started this thread, as Paignton itself had never been associated with woollen mills, to my knowledge at any rate. I've since discovered that the Harbertonford mill which you mentioned in your first post was actually operating as a textile mill making blankets and serge for the Royal Navy up until the late 1950s, when the machinery had become too outdated for the mill to be competitive. It was owned by the Churchward family and one of the sons was an agricultural merchant on the side, so perhaps he took over the premises there afterwards and it's his business you remember. (If I remember my notes correctly, I think there was also an agricultural tool maker elsewhere in the village.) In any case, you've pretty much confirmed that John Wright would have had to travel some distance to his place of work, whether it was Buckfast or Harbertonford.