ROPE SYSTEMS

The Rope Drive in the multi-storeyed Lowertown Mill, Haworth, 1895

“Yorkshire Textile Mills,” Columb Giles & Ian H Goodall, Royal

Commission on the Historical Monuments of England & West Yorkshire

Archaeology Service, 1995 (CIBSE Heritage Group Collection)

Powered Mules in a Cotton Mill, 1835

“Cotton Mills in Greater Manchester,” Mike Williams with D A Farne, the

Greater Manchester Archaeological Unit & the Royal Commission on the

Historical Monuments of England, 1992

(CIBSE Heritage Group Collection)

Carding engines (left) belt-driven from an overhead line shaft, about 1830

(Williams & Farne)

Lumbhole Mill, Kettleshulme housed a steam engine ands steam boilers

and a waterwheel working as a complementary system to drive line

shafting to power textile machinery, c.1835. “East Cheshire Textile Mills,”

Anthony Calladine & Jean Fricker, Royal Commission on the Historical

Monuments of England, 1993 (CIBSE Heritage Group Collection)

Engine House at Albert Mills, Lockwood with drying floors over the

boilers, showing the beam engine and (D) Upright drive shaft and

(E) Line shaft (Giles & Goodall)

A 15000 horsepower triple-expansion engine and rope drive at a

Stockport Mill of 1897 (Williams & Farne)

The engine house at Hare Mill, Stansfield, 1907, showing the horizontal

cross-compound engines and the rope drive feeding into the rope race

(Giles & Goodall)

The Rope Race added to the external wall of the mill at

Barkerend Mills, Bradford, c.1870 (Giles & Goodall)

Photograph of 1907 showing cotton mill workers and their looms

powered by belts and pulleys from an overhead line shaft

Another picture of machinery drive arrangements, this time at

Queen Street Mill, Burnley (community.webshots.com)

The 1930’s Turbine & Switch Room at Manningham Mills in Manningham

(Giles & Goodall)

By the end of the First World War, electricity started to eliminate shafts,

pulley wheels and belts driven from a central engine house. Thousands of

individual electric motors became the norm and by 1919 it was estimated

that some 2 million horsepower was in use.