Image ID: 11077

George Scales' Linen Factory, Farndon Road, Newark on Trent, c 1841

Farndon Road
Newark on Trent
England

This drawing comes from one of the company's billheads dated 1841. On the left of the drawing is the home of George Scales Jnr. followed by a wall behind which was a two stoned cloth cellar with drying room above together with a cottage (occupied at that time by William Berry a warehouse man). The main linen factory came next - a four storied building with a hipped roof capped by a cupola and wind vane - placed at right angles to the road. A large door in the gable end gave direct access for wagons, whilst other rooms at the back contained the steam engine (marked by the chimney), a bleaching house, a beetling house, immersion house, drying rooms and a lime and chemical store. Behind that was another two-storied, detached building used as a yarn house and stabling. Access to the yarn house and stables was through a set of gates which lay between a row of eight workmen's cottages extending towards Devon Bridge and known as Scales Row. George Scales is believed to have established his linen factory on (what is now) Farndon Road at Newark in about 1793. The site was chosen with some care with the Rivers Devon on Trent close by providing plenty of water for the bleaching and dying processes. At its height the factory employed around 500 hands. The company made great play of the quality of "mineralised water" used in their washing process, and the fact that the whitening process relied on no artificially introduced chemicals. This "good water", they maintained, came exclusively from a nearby spring known as St. Catherine's Well. A full description of the processes involved in making linen at Scales factory may be found in The Newark Heraldnewspaper of 19th October 1889. Having passed through the factory, the linen was laid out on the 9.5 acres of meadow land behind the factory which was used as a Bleaching ground. This gently sloping site down to the River Devon was an ideal place for "exposing the linen to pure air, gentle dews, and bright sun". It was by these natural agents alone that Scales' cloth was bleached - a process which could take upto a month.

Date: 1841

Organisation Reference: NCCK000055

Organisation: