Jim Sutton
Driven by the Dane
Appearances can be deceptive. At first glance this could be dismissed as just another coffee table publication designed for the dilettante reader. Don’t be fooled by the outward appearance. The volume’s subtitle gives the potential reader a better understanding of the book’s content, ‘Nine Centuries of Waterpower in South Cheshire and
The volume is well researched, it has been twenty years in preparation, well illustrated and informative. It is divided into seven sections, each dealing with a separate river section; it gives an account of all known water driven industrial sites on the river Dane and its tributaries. In all it provides an account of eighty seven sites from Gradbach Mill on the upper Dane to Barons Croft Saltworks at the confluence of the rivers Dane and Weaver at Northwich, these include corn mills, textile mills, furnaces and forges, salt works, paper making and at least one tannery which operated over a time scale of 900 years from 1086, or perhaps earlier until the last water-powered mill stopped work in the early 1980s. It includes all known sites on the Wheelock, the Upper Wheelock and Fowle Brook. Each location is given a map reference, an effective history including details of its origin, when known, its life and its decline; and in many cases photographs and frequently a blown up section of the first edition of the 25 inch to a mile Ordnance Survey map or an even earlier map where these exist and are relevant.
Throughout the volume there are illustrations of working plant and machinery with effective descriptions of how this operated. At the end there are two appendices, the first entitled ‘Technology’, of 38 pages, which deals with the industrial processes in each category of trade or occupation encountered. The second Chronology, comprising 14 pages, makes comparisons of the activity carried out during different periods of time. In addition there is an effective index and bibliography. The book effectively fulfils its own remit and it is perhaps unfair to be too critical of omissions but with few exceptions there is no reference to any of the social history accompanying this early industrialisation nor the houses and hamlets that must have developed in association with it.
