This biscuit tin has been sitting in the archive for many years. Hidden inside is a little treasure trove that links us to our industrial heritage and to a lady who was born almost a century and a half ago.
A handwritten label states “Weaving Tools belonging to Miss Hannah Hayes age 85 – died 1961. A weaver in Hollins Mill, Marple”.
Some of the items are easily recognisable – the threads, metal comb and tweezers - some less so; why is there a razor blade, what about the metal tube only 2.5 cms long and the box of black lead?
I believe the razor blade was used when the yarn had broken and needed to be mended invisibly to maintain the quality of the cloth. Hannah needed the thread fibres to be “feathered” rather than of equal lengths, so that she could twist them together in the mending process. The closed-end wooden tube contained a selection of weaving needles including three double ended threading hooks.
When the lid was removed from the hollow metal tube, a metal stand and a magnifying glass fell into the palm of my hand. These fitted together and Bill Beard, one of the Archive Team, suggested it was used to check the repair and/or the thread count.
Thread count signifies the number of vertical and horizontal threads in one square inch of fabric. Hollins Mill wove high quality cotton to make into bed sheets and the general rule is that the higher the thread count, the better the sheet. Both 600 and 800-thread sheets are noticeably soft to the touch and far superior to the standard 250.
The metal spikes with curved ends and wooden handles were something of a mystery but a reverse image search on the internet suggested that they were used for threading warp ends to the loom. Perhaps the hair slide was just that, to keep Hannah’s hair out of her eyes. The black leads were for a propelling pencil which was perhaps used to make notes of what she had been doing.
Who was Hannah Hayes?
Hannah was born in Woodley in 1878, the second of four children; her parents, Joseph and Phoebe were both from Congleton. Joseph was a railway worker at Ardwick and Woodley before the family moved to Marple in 1881 when he became a station master. Their first home was at Chadwick Row, Marple before moving to Church Lane near Leigh Avenue and then to No 1 Church Lane. In 1891 Hannah was a ‘scholar’ and her elder sister Edith (14) who was born in Ardwick, was a calico weaver. By 1901 Hannah was also a calico weaver. The 1939 Register records Hannah living at 1 Ellesmere Avenue, her home until she died in 1963.
These weaving tools, together with a pair of Hollins Mill bed sheets and the ‘frog mug’, all in our archive, are tangible reminders of Hollins Mill and the people who worked there.
click an image to see a larger version
Hilary Atkinson, January 2025
Further reading:
- What links a frog with Sunderland and a mill in Marple? Hollins Frog Mug article
- “Hollins Mill – the heart of Marple for over one hundred years” Price £5 available at meetings and via the Website.
- The Definitive Guide to thread-count
Thread count, also called threadcount or threads per inch (TPI), is a measure of the coarseness or fineness of fabric. It is measured by counting the number of threads contained in one square inch of fabric or one square centimetre, including both the length (warp) and width (weft) threads. The thread count is the number of threads counted along two sides (up and across) of the square inch, added together. It is used especially with cotton linens such as bed sheets, and has been known to be used in the classification of towels.
There is a common misconception that thread count is an important consideration when purchasing bedding. However, linen experts claim that beyond a thread count of 400, there is no difference in quality. They further highlight that sheet material is of greater importance than thread count.[ The amount of thread that can fit into a square inch of fabric is limited, suggesting that bedding beyond 400 count is likely a marketing strategy. Inflated thread counts are usually the result of including the number of strands in a twisted yarn in the claimed thread count.[15]
