Looking down to Albion Mills

Image: © Jonathan Kington Taken: 24 Nov 2010

At 200 feet long and 50 feet wide covering three floors, Albion Mills is the biggest of Biddulph's former mills. Built in 1884 as a fustian mill, its early records are unfortunately lost and the original ownership is unclear. It is now closed and its future seems to be unknown. Fustian is thought to originate in Fustat, Egypt at around 200 AD. It is a strong, durable cloth made from a cotton weave that has loosely laid wefts (cross-threads) that form loops above the ground weave. These loops are then cut to produce the familiar ridged appearance on corduroy. Before machines were invented to do this job, it was a highly skilled manual task carried out by both men and women. A specially shaped knife was used that had to be sharpened at the start of every day by a trained sharpener, who was also often a master-cutter himself. The knife would be held in one hand (some could use two at once) whilst the cutter would walk along the bolt of cloth that had been laid over rollers and stretched from one end of the factory to the other. The knives were as thin as a razor and as supple as a watch spring which fitted into a guard that was held between the fingers. Every cutter had his or her unique style with no two cutters holding the knife at the same angle to the cloth, this meant that if a different person took over a length of cloth from another then the change would show in the nap and that length of cloth was ruined. Cutters always wore clogs because, with the long distances walked every day, shoes wore out too quickly. To produce a 145 yard pair of pieces of finest quality fustian required the worker to walk a total of 72 miles. A man would usually be expected to make four pieces a week, working very long hours and earning 16 shillings (80 pence) in that week.

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