IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Ashlands Close, SUTTON-IN-ASHFIELD, NG17 2GL

One of the stones has the inscription "Changing Places 2000 AD, Breaking the Mould - 1 of 21, Artist Andrew McKeown". Unusual to see a number on a sculpture, but it seems that this is one of a limited set of identical sculptures around the UK - so only twenty more to find then! http://andrewmckeown.com/index.php?id=101

These figures stand near the Visitor Centre at Brierley Forest Country Park. The park is on the site of the former Sutton Colliery but which was called Brierley as many of the original miners came from Brierley in Staffordshire.

Heading west.

Created on the site of Sutton Colliery which finally closed in 1989.

This large factory occupies most of a rectangular site extending about 475 ft north-south along North Street and 350ft east-west along High Street in Huthwaite. When first built in 1907, it only extended 230ft along North Street, but was expanded in 1919 further down North Street. Various buildings had been added later, the most recent being the block along the north side of the site. In 1940, the British Royal Navy took over this 4-storey block to be the headquarters of their medical supply department for most of World War II. The architect of the 1907 building was Mr. F.E. Harris of Manchester and the contractor Mr. J. Dickinson of Derby. The factory was built by the Cooperative Wholesale Society (CWS) for the manufacture of hosiery. It is sometimes referred to as the Belmont Clothing Factory, but I suspect that "Belmont" was a clothing brand name, rather than the name of the building. When first opened, it was expected to employ 400 people, but probably employed even more in its heyday. It was certainly the major employer of female labour in Huthwaite (New Hucknall Colliery being the major employee of males). At some point, the hosiery factory became part of the Coats Viyella company. Coats Viyella was once one of the UK’s leading textile businesses with retail (Jaeger), thread (Coats) and manufacturing (CV Clothing) businesses. The building is currently occupied by the Quantum Clothing Group. Quantum was created as a management buy-out from Coats Viyella in December 2000 and currently employs around 5000 people worldwide. All the business’s UK operations including warehousing, design, development, commercial and finance operate from this site in Huthwaite, together with a small office in Ireland. In July 2012, the Quantum Clothing Group was acquired by Japanese conglomerate Itochu Corp. In April 2015, Ashfield District Council granted planning permission for the "demolition of the existing warehousing and factory complex". For more web-based information on this factory, please see http://www.huthwaite-online.net/hucknall/press/1907-cws.php , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huthwaite#Hosiery_Factory , http://archiveshub.ac.uk/search/summary.html?rsid=1310488424&startRecord=1&maximumRecords=20&hitposition=1#rightcol , http://www.quantumclothing.com/AboutUs.aspx and http://www.knittingindustry.com/quantum-clothing-acquired-by-itochu/ . For further images of this factory please see Image, Image, Image, Image and Image

For more information on this factory, please see Image

  Brierley Waters is a fishing pond in Brierley Forest Park, which is a former colliery site that is now owned and managed by Ashfield District Council. For other photographs of the pond click here http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5649525 or here http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5649534 See also these photographs by Peter Barr http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3549139 and Trevor Rickard http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2248556

Looking south-west across the pond to the large Co-operative Wholesale Society hosiery factory at Huthwaite.