Reflections

On getting off the train this evening I went up to the canal to take some pictures rather than going straight home, as the sky was full of colour. I like the reflections in the water and have lightened this up bringing out the colour as it was looking a bit dull. It's not very sharp and the colour tone is all wrong but it's all I've got :)

Skipton is popular for mooring canal boats, I presume due to the town's facilities. Never spent any time on one but they do look like a good way of drifting through the countryside on a summers day.

The mill next to the canal has been converted to apartments recently. Built in 1828 and opened as a spinning and weaving mill, but burned down two years later. Immediately rebuilt, this time as a cotton mill. The mill did spinning, weaving, making of sewing cotton (Sylko) and dyeing.

The decline of Britain's cotton Industry started with changes to machinery developed in America which Britain did not adopt until much later, Japan producing cotton 24 hours a day becoming the largest producers in 1933, WWII and the economic depression added to the decline. Britain couldn't produce cotton cheaper than Asia and the Far East. It became uneconomical and by 1958 Britain became a net importer of cotton.

The Cotton Industry Act of 1959 was intended to help modernise the industry by helping to compensate cotton companies disposing of outdated machinery, but the practical effect was to scrap countless mills across Lancashire and other cotton districts, without increasing the efficiency of the industry or its competitiveness against Asian and Far Eastern competition.

During the 1960s and 70s, mills were closing at a rate of almost one a week.

By the 1980s, the industry which had once been Britain's economic flagship had sunk almost without trace, leaving in its wake a legacy of mill towns and cities which would serve as a reminder to future generations of the importance of what was once the most successful of British industries.