When we were at Knit Camp in Stirling we took some time out to visit a few local places, one of which was Alloa. Sitting at the foot of the beautiful Ochil Hills, Alloa is home to a dear friend of my Mum's who now lives in Leeds and it was very special to be able to visit her home town.
Although Alloa itself may not be familiar to most people, knitters will most certainly be familiar with one of the town's major landmarks as it is the orginal site of Patons & Baldwins.
This picture shows the Patons school, built for workers at the Patons factory, now sadly closed. Isn't it a fabulous building? I was so sorry I hadn't been able to see it when it was open as it only closed in recent years (1999). And I only found out when I got home that the factory archive is held in Clackmannanshire. I would have loved to see some of the archive material. There is more information on the Royal Commission's website and I am was glad that Tesco (originally the factory site was to be demolished to build a new store) is now sited on the other side of the town and that the site may be used by Clackmannanshire College and as a heritage museum, so fingers crossed for its future.
(Sorry, I'm a bit of a mill/textile heritage nut, so I love this stuff - if anyone else has good archive info on old mills and especially dyeworks etc. I'd love to hear about it).
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4 comments:
thank you for this, Debbie, really interesting. My mum is from Alloa, her mother (my gran) worked in Patons' mill
What an absolutely fantastic place. I love old architecture too and this is magnificent.
And the dyeing is superb. It must have been a wonderful time all round!
Hi Audm,
I daresay they'll know of each other as I gather historically at least, most people either worked at Patons or someone in their family did!
Thanks, Woolly Mother,
One thing you can say is that we're not short of great architecture in this part of the world!
We had a great time (and credit for the dyeing goes to the students!).
(ps. Love your blog pic - awesome colours!). What is the crop?
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