Orchard Street

A few moments before I took the photograph from which this image is derived a rat ran across the street from Lower Carr Mill (left) to Churchgate Mill (right).

Behind me is the access to Hopes Carr as shown in the second photograph in my post for Friday 13th.

The first factory built here in 1759 was a silk mill powered by a watermill on Hempshaw Brook. It was bought by Charles Davies in 1781 who added new buildings and moved production over to cotton spinning. By the 1790s it was owned by Thomas Hope who gave his name to the area and built additional mills, a tannery, hat works and workers' houses. Higher Carr Mill was demolished by 1907 but Lower Carr Mill continued to be used for cotton spinning until the 1930s.

A contribution to The Weekend in Black and White.