A typical day at Bancroft Mill? “No such thing!” says Harry Moore.

Since the mill was built and commissioned ninety years ago there must have been many routine days for those involved with the mill. All that changed in 1968 when, after nearly sixty years of manufacturing quality cotton, adverse trading conditions and high running costs forced its closure. Two years later the efforts of Pendle Council and a few local people ensured the formation of a Trust to preserve the remaining buildings and to restore the engine to running condition if at all possible. 

Following that there has never been a typical day! 

The first couple of years involved much planning, restoration work on the engine, the boiler and the buildings with the eventual aim of opening a working museum for the public. Whether it was cleaning rust from the engine, performing building maintenance or searching for parts to replace those that disappeared following closure, every day at Bancroft was a new experience. Used replacement parts were sourced nationwide after extensive searches, fittings for the boiler were found as far away as Cornwall, overhauls of the parts were undertaken and many new skills learnt. Sadly, few of the original team remain after thirty years but new members have augmented numbers and brought new skills, those who have passed on have left many reminders of their patience and abilities. Local companies also provided invaluable help both during this period and later.

Harry says that working members travel from as far afield as Tyneside, Merseyside and deepest Yorkshire, such is the magnetism of the mill and the lovely engine built in Nelson by William Roberts and Sons in 1920. One member from afar has regularly “camped” in the mill on steaming weekends. Members undertake virtually all of the necessary maintenance tasks on fifty Saturdays each year whilst raising steam and running the engine on, perhaps, fourteen Sundays each year. The roof was removed from the boiler house about 10 years ago, the boiler lifted out by a mobile crane and restored by a specialist about 10 miles away. It was then refitted by the Bancroft team and the specialist. However, re-pointing and strengthening of the 120 foot chimney was undertaken by the late Fred Dibnah a job neither for the amateur nor the faint-hearted!

Bancroft Mill has played host to many organisations and continues to do so, engineering bodies, vintage and veteran vehicle owners and schools have all been regular visitors over the years.
In recent years the Trust has acquired a second mill engine from a mill at Bradley near Skipton.

Building operations, foundations and some new parts for this engine are currently occupying several of our members each Saturday. Harry, apart from his committee duties is heavily involved in his home workshop making anchorages for this engine and, presently, new bearings for the original engine; he says that it is the variety of the tasks that adds icing to the cake!

Harry Moore - Bancroft Mill