The River Windrush and a surprise blanket factory

It was late afternoon when we left Crawley Road and headed down the footpath I’d spotted on the map. I wasn’t entirely confident that I knew where I was going but I was keeping quiet about that fact. We passed a row of picture postcard cottages. There was a grassy field to our left and the track was wide and mostly paved. It must lead somewhere, even if that somewhere was not where we wanted to go. I hoped where it led was not a wild goose chase because we’d been walking more or less constantly for several hours at this stage and Commando might like to run marathons, but he’s not so keen on walking them.

After about two minutes we got our first glimpse of the river. There was a bridge we could have crossed but we didn’t because I thought it would take us somewhere we didn’t want to go. I might have been wrong. What I was hoping for was a glimpse of the fields where they used to hang the blankets. What I got was a lot of trees hiding the view. The river didn’t look as big as I’d expected either. I had the terrible feeling that we should have crossed the bridge but I didn’t want to let Commando know that.

Despite the lack of river views it was pretty and we soon came to another bridge. There was some kind of building ahead. We crossed the bridge, mainly because it seemed to be heading in the direction we needed to go while the first bridge hadn’t. Later I discovered the first bridge would have given me the views I longed for and would have given us a choice of river walks, both long and short. It would also have got us hopelessly lost and taken us in completely the wrong direction. On a different day, with more time and less miles behind us, I’d have taken the untried path.

The river was not as wide as I’d expected. It seemed more brook than river, but to be fair, we couldn’t see much of it and I am used to looking at the River Itchen at its widest point, right before it empties into the sea. The Windrush doesn’t flow into the sea. It is a tributary of the Thames, rising near Winchcombe in Gloucestershire and meandering south east for around forty miles to Newbridge. To three young boys with homemade boats to sail, it must have seemed the widest and fastest flowing river in the world though.

A little gravel path going off to the left looked promising and the views, reminiscent of some on the Itchen Navigation, looked interesting but it seemed to be a dead end on the map so we carried on along the main path. This led us past new looking houses, built no doubt for their river views. There was another little bridge, showcasing these new, and probably expensive houses and apartments. While my eyes had been mostly on the river, I’d caught a few tantalising glimpses of a tall brick chimney. I wasn’t sure if it was a good thing, or if it meant we were heading into some kind of industrial estate. Either way, I was curious.

Maybe if the sun hadn’t been shining so brightly on my phone screen as I tried to look at the map I’d have worked it out sooner. When we emerged onto Mill Road though, I realised we’d stumbled onto a blanket mill. A blue plaque on the wall told me this was Witney Mill, where Charles Early had expanded his family business. When I read about Witney and the blanket trade, I’d always thought the change from cottage industry to factory production was a bad thing. I’d imagined the blanket mills and factories to be dark and depressing, like the industrial buildings I’d seen in Manchester. This beautiful building proved me wrong. The hand blanket weavers, like my ancestors, may have seen mechanisation as a bad thing that threatened their livelihoods, but the factories were obviously not nearly as bad as I’d thought.

Later I discovered that the Witney Mill was built on the site of a much older cloth fulling mill, known as Woodford or Waterford Mill. This mill was fulling cloth back in 1277 and may even be one of the mills mentioned in the Doomsday book. It is almost certainly the oldest site associated with woollen manufacture in Witney. Of course, the medieval mill buildings are long gone. The building with the blue plaque dates from around 1750 and was originally a house and then offices. In the 1820’s the Early family began to lease and buy up land in the area and install more and more innovative machinery, like a portable steam engine in 1854 and steam powered looms in 1858. In 1864 Charles Early built a new engine house and boiler and the next year he built a power loom shed. Then, in 1888, he bought the site of Woodford Mill and began to consolidate his manufacturing base. The tall brick chimney that had made me think of modern industry actually dates from 1895.

It was a large site, spanning both sides of the private road we’d just emerged from. Given how close it was to the house where my great grandfather, Elijah Haley, lived, I wondered if he ever worked there. The 1939 Register has him as a hand blanket weaver, retired, but the factories continued to employ outworkers, and handlooms were used for some products and intricate patterns up until the 1960’s so he may have worked for them.

Ultimately, the mechanisation of the blanket weaving industry did change the world for the people of Witney. For a while it brought prosperity. The new factories could work together to compete for large contracts, like the one John Early secured in 1805 with the Hudson’s Bay Company and shared with his fellow manufacturers. The tradition of weaving as a cottage industry with skills passed from father to son died out though. Families like mine found their sons shunning the family trade and moving away to find work. When Elijah and Esther Haley’s first three children were boys, they probably expected them to become three blanket weavers and to live in Witney for the rest of their lives. What actually happened was very different. Thomas became a canvasser and moved from place to place until he settled in Southampton driving a bread van. Hariph became a bicycle maker and later a motorcycle mechanic and moved to Plymouth and Harry followed his big brother to Southampton where there were plenty of labouring jobs.

We had stumbled upon Early’s factory by chance but I was glad we’d seen it. To some extent it played a part in my history, because even if Elijah never worked there, the idea of working there was surely what drove his son Thomas to leave Witney. If he hadn’t, I might not exist.

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