Posts tagged Industrial Archaeology
Do we need an Industrial Archaeology?
Jul 24th
Cromford Canal. Click for larger image.
It’s easy to take a World Heritage Site for granted when it’s on your doorstep. I had thought of shooting a short portfolio of Cromford for a competition. They required ten photos. After looking into the project I’ve decided that the competition isn’t going to happen for me, but a short photo essay on Cromford, or possibly the Derwent Valley Mills, remains an interesting idea.
Industrial Archaeology can get short shrift from other archaeologists. Often there’s written records, plans and for some places oral accounts of work at a site. Is Archaeology necessary? Mark Henshaw, the Archaeology Dude, makes a good argument that Archaeology can draw multiple lines of evidence to inform histories of the past. I wouldn’t discount that, and I think his point, Archaeology isn’t just about digging, is very important from an American perspective because there Archaeology is seen as a branch of Anthropology. In the UK you’re more likely to see Archaeology paired with History or Classics. So do we really need Industrial Archaeologists when there so many Early Modern Historians.
I think another factor Archaeology brings is spatial thinking. Looking at the early days of the professionalisation of Archaeology in Britain, one of the More >
Derby Silk Mill
Jul 14th
Derby Silk Mill, now Derby Industrial Museum.
This is my entry for the Your Nearest Site carnival. Derby Silk Mill is arguably the world’s oldest factory. The Derwent Valley Mills consortium certainly argued that it was and as a result the site, along with 867 buildings along the Derwent Valley, were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List. The reason for adding these buildings to the lists is that they are part of the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.
In the seventeenth century the economy of Derbyshire was agricultural. In the eighteenth century this began to change. The Silk Mill was built on the banks of the Derwent in Derby. A giant water wheel drove a shaft which in turn drove the looms. Wikipedia has a colourful story which I missed at the museum. One of the designers of the mill, John Lombe, is said to have copied the design for the spinning wheels from Italian silk weavers. Lombe died in 1722 in mysterious circumstances. The design was copied for use elsewhere in the North, other factories in the Derwent Valley Mills site were build for manufacturing cotton. Along the banks of the Derwent the pattern of settlement changed. Now people were needed More >
