Described as the most complete surviving example of a designed industrial revolution community, Quarry Bank Mill has secured £3.9m of lottery funding.

The project, which was launched in 2012, will attempt to bring the whole story of Quarry Bank back to life, sharing more of this special community which includes the mill, a farm, a village and the homes and workplaces of the owner, mill manager, workers and apprentices, a story of power, people and the birth of industry.

Few, if any other sites of comparable significance are as complete or as untouched.

The Quarry Bank Project funding will support various plans for the site including the restoration and opening of a worker’s cottage and the village shop in Styal Village, restoring the Upper Garden to its former glory, (including the restoration of the 1830s curvilinear glasshouse), opening Quarry Bank House to the public and improving access around the site with a new network of paths and roads.

Samuel Greg established the cotton mill on the banks of the River Bollin in 1784, making use of the readily available water supply to power the mill. Like many other such developments, when the mill was first built there was no community of any size on the site, which was chosen more for the availability of water power than for a workforce.

The Gregs soon built housing to attract adult workers and established a village complete with Unitarian and Methodist chapels, a village school, a shop, allotments and a farm to provide food for the mill community. Uniquely, Quarry Bank today contains the complete range of buildings of a self-sufficient mill complex from the early Industrial Revolution.

Today, Quarry Bank is a focal point for the local area. Over 173,000 people visit the mill and other features each year and many more enjoy the network of paths around the wider estate. Quarry Bank is renowned for its learning programme, with over 30,000 school visitors a year with children coming from all over the North West and beyond.

The total cost of the project is £9.5m. Private donations are making a vital contribution to this target. To date the appeal has raised approximately £900,000 and we are continuing to fundraise for the balance.

Rt Hon George Osborne, MP for Tatton, welcomed the news and said: “We are so lucky to have one of England’s most important industrial heritage sites on our doorstep. This grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund will open even more of the site to the public and preserve Cheshire’s history for future generations.”

John Darlington, National Trust Director of Region for the North West, said

“We are delighted that the HLF has approved our project. This is the news we’ve all been waiting for – it’s the green light for our ambitious vision and plans at Quarry Bank. We will at last be able to explore the complete story of a self-sufficient early Industrial Revolution community; of mill owners and workers, adults and children, industry and ingenuity, landscape and agriculture.”

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