Tag: Lymm

We had been told that the Bridgewater was a pretty canal, but nothing quite prepared us for lovely Lymm. It seems to be a thing on this canal that you turn a corner or go under a bridge and wham a stunning house on the bank. Lymm didn’t disappoint.

It’s a chocolate box village and I hate to think how busy it would be in the “old normal”. We’d picked up Eric’s cousin Jane and her husband Kevin who live in this area for a short cruise and they acted as our tour guides.

Lymm’s history is fascinating, yet small enough for the local heritage centre to be well worth a visit.
The central gathering point is a mediaeval cross built on a sandstone mound. It’s very similar to the red sandstone used to build Liverpool cathedral. Although I don’t recall seeing stocks outside the cathedral.

Lymm was here long before the canal, it’s mentioned in the doomsday book. The turnpike road from Warrington to Stockport passed this way, but the industrial revolution and the canal brought many changes to this mainly agricultural community.

In the early 1800s the women had a cottage industry as Fustian cutters. For those of you, like me, Fustian is a thick woven cotton/linen cloth that has a cut pile. Generally used for coarse working garments but also includes fine fabrics such as silk velvet. The woven fabric is brought from the mill to the cutters, it is dressed with a stiffener to enable the cutters to work their magic. It’s laid onto a long table where the cutters use special rods and knives to delicately cut the fibres.
The rise of the cotton mill industry demanded a huge workforce and many relocated to the towns to secure a steady, if meagre income, however Lymm being slightly further afield but on the canal route was able to transport cloth to and from Manchester and the cottage industry became the mainstay of Lymms victorian economy. Three story terrace cottages were built where the entire top floor was one long cutting room. Whole families worked as cutters including the men not just the women. The children were given laudanum and alcohol, sold for teething, to keep them passive until the were old enough to learn the trade, around 8 years old. Despite the work being intricate yet very poorly paid many of these families knew of nothing else, it was simply their way of life and was accepted.
However Lymm has other claims to fame, the Fustian industry had largely died out by the early 20th century as the process became mechanicalised. Wright’s of Lymm Ltd became a prominent employer making gold leaf until the 1980s. Wright’s gold leaf is what was used to decorate the gates to Buckingham palace. Not all of Lymm’s trade sparkled so. £30000 a year was made transporting nightsoil to be used as agricultural fertiliser.

Getting rid of rubbish must be one of Lymm’s current day assets as well. If you recall that big black binliner full of cardboard from our solar panel installation that had been sitting in the shower for the past week. Lymm has a dedicated boaters recycling bin. Oh the things that make me happy.

We enjoyed a whole day in Lymm, Eric went off to visit Kevin’s workshkop. Sponsored by the Methodist church, Kevin runs the Chapel in the Fields project, providing a safe space for creativity and spirituality for the community.

He made us a lovely oak plaque for Firecrest. If we lived locally I’m sure it’s something we would both be actively involved in.

While Eric was being treated to the sights and smells of a woodworkshop I went off for a walk through the woods around Lymm Dam.

Since writing this post, we’ve discovered some more family history. Eric’s great grandfather, Thomas was born in Lymm, he was a labourer and moved to Warrington. Eric’s second great grandfather was Jabez Plinston(1826-1898), both he and his first wife were Fustian cutters. They were married in 1845, and had 2 children, sadly both died before their first birthday. Maria also died aged 26, Jabez remaried and a few generations later along came Eric.