Industrial Revolution. Chapel Street and Fore Street have lanes called ‘opways’ (pronounced opeways) lined with small cottages, leading off at right angles which housed these craftspeople. A unique survival are the weavers’ cottages in Chapel Street which have a large wooden structure on top of the terraced buildings with slats that could be opened and closed to control the drying of the washed woollen cloth. In 1760 the Hamlyn family built a large mill that replaced the cottage industries and craftsmen and their families found employment within it. It grew into the largest employer in the town with more than 700 looms in operation by 1838. In1922, the Hamlyn’s sold the mill to the Cooperative Wholesale Society but it was forced to close in 1973. This destroyed the engine of the town’s economy from which mighty blow it has yet to fully recover. The Buckfast Spinning Company still spins and dyes wool for Axminster Carpets. It also produces a range of carpets itself just down the road from the Abbey in Buckfast. Devonia Products prepares animal skins (especially sheepskin) to make rugs and leather items and has recently opened a new visitor’s centre. In the old Hamlyn mill building today you will find a number of small and medium sized enterprises engaged in a variety of thriving commercial activities, but the town could always do with more and offer a warm welcome to employers who would like to relocate to our town.


the town and water was a major raw material in cloth and leather production. Leather was vital to early industrial society. It made shoes, buckets and cups and was used for belts to drive machinery and harness for working animals. Leather made flexible joints (bellows for example) and seal joints against leaks of fluids and gasses. Woollen cloth and sheepskin production continued from medieval to modern times. The spinning of yarn and weaving it into cloth created a major cottage industry here before the building of the large mills during the


5


HISTORY


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