Masson Mills Working Textile Museum will be closed for the foreseeable future due to the current Coronavirus pandemic.
Our policy is to adhere to all guidance issued by Public Health England and the decision to close the museum has been made in the interests of public safety and the safety of our staff.
We will post a notice on this website when the museum re-opens.
Masson Mills Working Textile Museum
Masson Mills house a fascinating collection of authentic historic textile machinery dating from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. The collection has been described as “possibly the UK’s finest collection of working textile machines” and includes machinery originally from Masson Mills, along with a large collection of other items and artefacts from textile mills all over Britain.

What Was It Like To Work In An 18th Century Cotton Mill?
Visitors to the museum can experience the genuine atmosphere of a working 18th century cotton mill in the original 1783 Masson Mill – the sights, the smells and the sounds are authentic and evocative. At Masson Mills there is a palpable sense of the continuity of enterprise. After “clocking in” with their entrance tickets, visitors “step back in time” on entering the old mill. Here they can see and appreciate Sir Richard Arkwright’s Legacy of over 200 years of industrial history.

Masson Mills Weaving Shed
The collection includes, amongst many other items:
- The original 1785 bell which called the employees to work
- Cotton doubling machines - some original to Masson Mills
- Some of the oldest working looms in the world - still producing cloth
- Pirn winders
- Cotton “Mules”
- “The Devil”
- Carding engines
- Overseer’s office
- Mechanics' shop in the ground floor of the Masson Gassing Mill
- The largest bobbin collection in the world
- Turbine House
- Weir and Riverbank
- Boilers and Boiler House
- Mill chimney
- Steam Engine
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