Quarry Bank reopening this bank holiday

On Saturday 25 August visitors to Quarry Bank, will again be able to step back inside one of Cheshire’s most famous mills – when the doors reopen to reveal brand new galleries created to tell the complete story of industrial life at Quarry Bank for the very first time.

Visitors will have the opportunity to find out about the people at the heart of Quarry Bank’s story – through new displays, experience a snapshot of the conditions that the workers faced through powerful imagery and facts, and discover how cotton cloth was made through watching the heritage machinery live in action.

Quarry Bank Mill, Styal, Cheshire. The mill was founded in 1784 and produced cotton until the 1950s.

Quarry Bank’s discovery trail for families ‘Journeys of the Imagination’ will also be brought to life in a newly transformed area of the cotton mill. Little explorers will be able to follow in the adventurous footsteps of people from Quarry Bank’s past and learn about their stories through interactive play spaces, including an indoor swing. During the summer, the ‘Journeys of the Imagination’ trail has taken visitors on their travels around the gardens and grounds, but the mill reopening will see something new for families to return for to complete the journey.

Over the last three years, Quarry Bank has been at the centre of one of the National Trust’s biggest projects with areas previously closed off to visitors being opened  up to show the many different sides of Quarry Bank’s past. These new areas include the mill owners’ family home, a worker’s cottage in the village of Styal and a nineteenth century curvilinear glasshouse in the gardens. The most recent work has seen the doors of the mill building close for 9 months while much of the indoor spaces have been transformed to tell the stories of the people that worked there, as well as improving access to visitors through the installation of a lift.

For more information, visit www.nationaltrust.org.uk/quarrybank