Out of Burnley

Tuesday 29 July, zero

We took a bus to the Queen Street Mill Textile Museum. Well worth a visit. It is an old mill that has been kept in operation as a tribute to what made Lancashire. The steam engine still runs and drives a sample of all the different processes required to make textiles.
Later on we did a self guided tour of the Weavers Triangle. This is the area that was full of mills and is now being developed into accommodation and services. Has the potential to be a boaters destination like Birmingham and Liverpool.

The Steam Engine at Queens Street

Rows and rows of looms

 Wednesday 30 July. Zero

First up a bus trip to Padiham for a quick look around the town before walking to a National Trust property, Gawthorpe Hall. A small but well presented Jacobean house. The best feature was a the textile display. The last owner was a textile artist and collector. Her stuff was excellent. In her later years the house was used for her to teach classes on all forms of textile art. I have seen stuff just as good in Diana's sister, Lynn's, house in Cambridge.

Gawthorpe Hall

A bit of the Gawthorpe Hall garden

After Gawthorpe a bus ride back to town and then up to Towneley Hall. A large house gifted to the people of Burnley. The house had several rooms as they were and others were now used as an Art Gallery and Museum. Once again worth the visit even if it was a rush. But we can go back our tickets are valid for a year.

Towneley Hall.

Thursday 31 July, 13 miles, 3 swing bridges.

We went into Burnley town centre for a quick look around before setting of through a mixture of countryside, villages, derelict mills and motorways to moor up outside Blackburn where we had stopped on our way north