Redditch and its needles

 

After a good breakfast we set out to find the historic Forge Mill needle museum on northern outskirts  of the nearby town of Redditch. The town dominated the craft of needle making and is believed to have supplied 90% of the worlds needles in Victorian times. Nowadays there is just one manufacture in the town and the trade is dominated by cheap Chinese and Indian products.

The Forge Mill is the last remaining water powered scouring mill where needles were cleaned and polished before being packaged. Much of the needle making work was done in dozens of smaller home working 'factories', often by women and children, before finally cleaning and polishing in the then 'state of the art' water powered scouring mill. The old mill building is preserved in its original state and has exhibits and videos showing the whole needle manufacturing process. There are many exhibits from the biggest manufactures of the day including Milward who also made fishing hooks and rods that were exported all over the world. I still have my Dads old split cane fishing rod that was made by Milwards.  

The mill is on the same site as the ruins of an Abbey so there is a multi purpose visitor centre, shop and cafe. We bought a pack of 'left handed needles with big eyes' for Kim and had a cheesy bean toasty for lunch before we returned to Sudley. Redditch has been redeveloped around the Kingfisher shopping centre with a complicated road system of underpasses, overpasses and bypasses. Ok if you know where you are going but I ended up back at Forge Mill before we found the way out.

Back at the castle we enjoyed a cocktail before dinner and the after dinner entertainer was a very visual comedian Ben Nickless. I laughed a lot, Rosemary didn't.