Rock Nook mill was originally the home of Fothergill and Harvey which was founded in 1847, as a partnership between Thomas Fothergill and Alexander Harvey, the company has been producing technical textiles since 1848.
Originally, fabrics were woven from natural fibres such as cotton and the company produced the first khaki drill for servicemen's uniforms.
Rock Nook was constructed in 1886 as the company grew and expanded. By 1945, as a research unit had been established, the company was diversifying away from cotton and into glass and other synthetic fabrics.
The company was amongst the first weavers to produce fabrics from new aramid fibres and during 1972 took advantage of the technology available from the Royal Aircraft Establishment to weave carbon fibre.
The Fothergill and Harvey Group was acquired by Courtaulds in 1987 and using the technology of Courtaulds commenced production of knitted fabrics.
Once Fothergill and Harvey left the mill was taken over by Tygaflor Ltd. who in turn have been swallowed up by Saint-Gobain and moved to Rochdale.
REPORT
Attended with @CrazyNinjaSquirrel and @godgp78 this wasn't on our target list for the day but after mutual agreement and me remembering there was an abandoned mill here we decided to have a mooch as we had time to spare.
entry was very easy no need to climb the palisade to the top floor but the mill structure itself was well dodgy (probably why they had dangerous building signs everywhere
but providing you watched your footing and what you were stepping on it was pretty ok until you saw down between the floors four stories lol.tons of orginal nice old industrial stuff left behind and the office blocks were still full of files, desks and what not quite liked this one to be fair and we didn't even do the tower or admin level as we didn't take torches so a re visit is on the cards ...
