Accessibility

Font Size

100% 150% 200%

Background Colour

Default Contrast
Close Reset

Newmilns, 76 Brown Street, Lace Factory

Factory (Period Unassigned)

Site Name Newmilns, 76 Brown Street, Lace Factory

Classification Factory (Period Unassigned)

Alternative Name(s) Haddow Aird And Crerar Limited

Canmore ID 105448

Site Number NS53NW 58

NGR NS 5320 3708

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/105448

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
Canmore Disclaimer. © Copyright and database right 2024.

Toggle Aerial | View on large map

Digital Images


First 100 images shown. See the Collections panel (below) for a link to all digital images.

Administrative Areas

  • Council East Ayrshire
  • Parish Galston
  • Former Region Strathclyde
  • Former District Kilmarnock And Loudoun
  • Former County Ayrshire

Architecture Notes

NS53NW 58 5320 3708

Dating from 1881, this factory was associated with Haddow, Aird and Steel, and comprises yellow-brick block of two-storeyed and attic and single-storeyed weaving sheds. The main facade is of red brick.

C C Allan 1979

The site was under the ownership of Haddow Aird and Crerar Limited on the date of visit.

Visited by RCAHMS (MKO) 16 December 1996.

Activities

Field Visit

East Ayrshire, Newmilns, 76 Brown Street, Lace Factory, Haddow, Aird and Crerar Ltd

Introduction

There has been a lace factory on this site since 1881. (1) The lace factory of Haddow, Aird and Crerar Ltd (formerly Haddow, Aird and Steel) is not shown on the 1st edition Ordnance Survey 25-inch map (Ayrshire, 1858, sheet XX). By the 2nd edition Ordnance Survey 25-inch map (Ayrshire, 1896, sheet XX) it is depicted and named ‘Lace Mill’. The footings of the main office block, Showroom and former Winding Shed (now known as the Terylene or Screen Loom Shed) are shown by 1896. The Lace Shed does not appear on the 3rd edition Ordnance Survey 6-inch map (Ayrshire, 1938, sheet XX). The Canteen (which overlies the old lade for Pates Corn Mill (NS53NW 53), demolished in the late 1970s), appears to post-date the Lace Shed and pre-dates the 1950s Winding Shed. The Canteen (disused) was not accessed during RCAHMS’s visit. In 1955, Haddow, Aird and Crerar employed 20 weavers plus 60 other staff. By 2009, there was 20 staff in total.

General Process

Until the 1970s, lace designs were sold to Irvine Valley lace manufacturers by freelance designers. (3) After that time, design tended to be done in-house. The drawing would be sold to the manufacturers, who would then decide on a product which would incorporate the design. These designs are listed in four handwritten registers (DP070279) in whichapproximatley have some 19,500 designs and noted.

A mock-up design (charcoal on tracing film) is created (DP070282) and the in-house designer would then put it onto graph paper and this draft would be sent to an external jaquard loom card-cutter (DP070281 – latterly the company had to do as much in house as possible due to the contraction of specialist skills within the lace industry). The card-cutter would use the design graph to transfer the design line by line. A separate card would be punched for each line. The cards were then laced together by machine and wired for hanging from the jacquard above the loom. The laced and wired cards were sent to Haddow, Aird and Crerar and five yard test samples would be made (DP070278) and stored in the Sample Room (the original design would be entered into the design books and stored in the Sample Room safe).

Haddow, Aird and Crerar buy in the yarn on cones, then spool onto bobbins (weft or pattern thread for the Lace Shed and screen looms in the Terylene Shed) and beams (warp thread) in the Winding Shed (ground floor) for the screen looms. The warping machine for the Lace Shed is located along the west end of the east wall. The weavers set up the looms (which can take up to two days) for a production run. In the 1950s, each loom had two weavers to set it up and weave the textile, by 2009 it was one weaver per loom. Filling the warp beams for the screen looms (21 inches wide, known as ‘pup beams’) and which have to be the same tension all the way through, can take 6 hours per production run. Filling empty spools or brasses for the shuttles on the brass winding machine is also a lengthy and skilled process and can take up to half an hour for one set of brasses (which make up a shuttle). The individual brasses also need to be prepared for winding, so ‘ravellin’ aff’ (carried out in the Lace Shed) involves removing the ends of unused thread from the brasses prior to being sent to the Winding Shed for filling.

The fabric for screens is woven in the Terylene Shed (former Winding Shed) and in the Lace Shed (only some of the looms are wide enough for screen weaving). The textile is created and the ‘web’ is produced. This is then sent off to the Grey Room or ‘Greige’ Room (the first floor of the Winding Shed), where imperfections are marked. These imperfections are darned (if flawed) or cleaned (if stained) and then sent elsewhere to a dyer to be coloured, stretched and dried. The textile is then returned to Haddow, Aird and Crerar for finishing. Skilled work such as such as finishing scallop-edged lace fabric has to be done by hand. This involves skilled workers stentering (pinning) the edges and finishing patterned pieces. The material (depending whether screens or lace goods) is cut into individual curtains (for instance, 8 lengths, 20 curtains in each). The work is then inspected, folded and packed in the White Room (Office Block, second floor; DP070276) and dispatched by road to customers.

Layout (see MS 6198; DP071176-7)

A. Office Block (MS 6198, A)

This three-storey block has a handsome red-brick elevation fronting a yellow brick building. The interior walls appear to be of asbestos sheeting and the floor of wood. The main offices, including the reception area and the managing director’s office are on the ground floor (DP070253-6). The warehouse is on the first floor and the second floor contains the White Room (clean room) containing flat inspection tables for checking of the material prior to shipment to customers. The roof structure is a pitched truss with a horizontal bottom chord, specifically a ‘fink’ truss, with lights on both pitches. The hoist is accessed from both the first (Warehouse) and second floors (White Room).

B. Showroom and (C) (MS 6198, B and C; DP070258-64)

The Showroom and Sample Rooms are in a one storey brick building east of the Office block. The flooring is wooden. The interior walls are of asbestos sheeting (as with the Office block) fixed onto wooden batons. There are two wood partitions with upper glazed sections dividing the space into the Showroom and Sample Room (DP070259). The Showroom is rectangular with original wooden cupboards around the edge on three sides. It has a king-post roof with lights in the south facing pitch (DP070259-60).

C. Sample Room

The Sample room (DO070262-3) is ‘L’ shaped and is lined with wooden shelving packed with fabric samples of the lace designs of Haddow, Aird and Crerar. There is also a walk-in safe for designs (DP070264). There are windows on the east end of the south wall which open onto the courtyard.

D. Terylene (ICI synthetic polyester fibre) Weaving Shed (MS 6198, D; DP070213-27)

The brick, one-storey, former Winding Shed, now a weaving shed, contains three large 1920s Nottingham looms (by W. Hooton, 8 point, 432 inches wide; the jacquards were not installed) which were acquired in 1993. These are referred to at Haddow, Aird and Crerar as the ‘Screen Looms’. This allows for the weaving of large curtains used in theatres known as ‘screens’ for which no pattern is required, hence the non-installation of the jacquards above the looms. Also, the former Winding Shed does not have the headroom required for the jacquards to be installed. In the north east corner of the shed is a 1930/1 card punching machine (see DP 070239-31) for jacquard looms. There was an attempt to electronically automate this machine in the 1990s but it was not a success. Two manual card punching machines had sat against the south wall of the weaving shed, but these had been disposed of sometime in late 2009.

E. Weaving/Lace Shed (MS 6198, E; DP070198-212; DP070231-9)

This shed is one-storey, 10 by 3 bay, brick building with mezzanine floor, with a king-post roof truss and asbestos sheet lined roof and wooden floor. Fenestration runs along the west end of the north wall with 10 windows (one for each loom along the south wall). The shed contains ten Nottingham lace curtain jacquard looms (see MS6198, E, looms numbered north to south), all driven from individual motors at cages on the west end of the looms. Each loom also has its rack clock (a rack is a unit or production or 720 motions of the machine with sixty racks required to produce 60 yards of cloth) at its west end.

Looms 1 (Stevens and Williamson, Lace Machine Builders, Nottingham, GM569, 1923, 8 point, 420 inches; last used for making a screen for the La Scala, Milan), 3 (Stevens and Williamson, GM570, 1923, 10 point, 384 inches), 5 (1923, Swift and Wass , 12 point 350 inches), 6 (Stevens and Williamson, 1923/4, 8 point, 420 inches), 7 (Stevens and Williamson, 1924, 14 point, 300 inches), 8 (Stevens and Williamson, 1924, 8 point, 420 inches) and 10 (1924, 8 point, 420 inches), have been the longest on site.

Looms 2 (Swift and Wass Makers, Nottingham), 4 (not in use and partly dismantled, 12 point, 305 inches), and 9 (Swift and Wass , 12 point, 305 inches) were installed as second-hand in 1981, 1990 and 1981 respectively. All the looms vary in width of pieces that they can weave, ranging from looms 300-420 inches in width, and in the fineness of the material ranging from 8 point (least fine) to 14 point.

The lace shed is unusual as the punch cards are stored on a mezzanine floor at the same level as the jaquard above the loom with approximately 19,500 jaquard cards on site (DP070265-70). The Lace Shed also has a warper (480 inches in width) for preparing the beams for the Lace Shed looms. There is also an area for ravelling off (‘ravellin’ aff’) whereby waste thread is removed from the brasses (pattern thread warp carrier) and is adjacent to looms 6 and 7 along the west wall .

F. Winding Shed (1950s extension)

This concrete, 1950s extension (DP071175), consists of three floors, plus a basement and is situated at the north end of the site. It has fenestration along the north, west and east sides, and has hard asphalt’ finished floors throughout. The basement of this building is used for storage but was originally the yarn store. There are two lifts in this block, both by Pickerings (DP070247).

On the ground floor (also known as the ‘dirty’, grey or un-dyed yarn area) is where slip winding/warping and brass winding takes place. The Warper (LIBA Maschinenfabrik, Type 23, 3008/1970 made in Naila, Germany), which winds the warp thread from cones onto the ‘pup beams’ of looms 11, 12 and 14 (the ‘screen’ looms, DP070234-8), is situated at the north-west end. The bobbin winders are arranged along the east wall (DP070232-3; DP070239-41). The brass bobbin winders (two, one black weft and one white weft; DP070245-6) wind the weft thread onto the brasses (which carry the pattern thread to the warp carrier). These machines are located at the south end. Each brass bobbin winder can wind 120 brasses per load, each ‘brass’ holds 300 yards of thread and each loom carries 140 brasses. The bobbins are kept in small wooden wheeled wagons (DP070243-4).

The first floor contains a screen inspection table, and is referred to as the Grey Room (DP070252). The inspection table is coloured red (DP070248-9) and white to allow the inspection of dyed and un-dyed material for flaws. An area for screen inspection was also set aside on this floor (DP070251). A bank of windows along the north and west elevations allow maximum light for checking the material. There are also darning machines (which had been slightly modified), but these are used infrequently, as most of the darning is done by hand.

G. Canteen

This single-storey brick built building post dates the Lace Shed and pre-dates the Winding Shed. It has been disused for some time and was not accessed on the date of visit.

References

(1) Allan, C.C., 1979, The Irvine Valley: cottage craft to factory industry, 187

(2) For a fuller account of the Jaquard loom and its workings, see Felkin, W., ‘The Jaquard Fancy Lace Manufacture’ in History of the Machine Wrought Hosiery and Lace Manufacturies, 1967 (facsimile 1887 edition by David and Charles), Newton Abbot, 356-9

(3) Information from Mr Aird, Managing Director of Haddow, Aird and Crerar, 2009.

References

MyCanmore Image Contributions


Contribute an Image

MyCanmore Text Contributions