Tag Archives: machinery

Wool for the loom

Saturday 21st June 2025, 12.40pm (day 5,049)

Loom, 21/6/25

With little else to do today (the football season hasn’t started yet), I visited the Calderdale Industrial Museum and learned some things about local industry around the Halifax area that I didn’t know before. Like, John Mackintosh became very rich and successful, founding the company that bore his name, and whose successors still manufacture Quality Street chocolates in Halifax, thanks only to the cooking of his wife Violet. She was the one who invented modern toffee — he was the one who called himself “The Toffee King”, though.

But for the photo, I’ll go with this mass of red and blue strands of wool, all converging into the Jacquard loom that is currently operating to the right, having been turned on for a few minutes during which time it produced plenty of noise and a few dozen lines of carpet.

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Spinning machinery

Wednesday 1st November 2023, 2.20pm (day 4,451)

Spinning machinery, 1/11/23

November opens with a far more interesting day than October closed. A day off work was called for, with Clare’s company. This is taken in the Bradford Industrial Museum, which is free to entry, easy to reach from home and has been there all the 23 years we’ve lived there, only I’ve never been there before. Worth a visit though.

On this shot, the game is to spot the asymmetries that are not the fault of the photographer. As in the puzzles in magazines — how many can you see…? I have at least six that trouble me.

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The ironworks guide, Blists Hill

Wednesday 19th August 2020, 3.50pm (day 3,282)

Blists Hill ironworks, 19/8/20

Once a derelict patch of post-industrial ruin, the area of Blists Hill in Telford has become a ‘Victorian town’ — a home for retired residential, commercial and industrial buildings, rebuilt or replicated in the valley of the Ironbridge Gorge.  It’s a tourist attraction, sure, but a pretty interesting one.  This chap shows off some machinery in the old ironworks that is clearly his pride and joy.

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Agricultural debris

Sunday 23rd August 2015, 2.55pm (day 1,459)

Agricultural machinery, 23/8/15

Passed on a walk through the countryside, on a muggy day. I dislike this kind of agricultural mess (why should someone feel free to litter the place just because they farm it?) while at the same time liking it as a subject for a picture.

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Valve

Saturday 8th August 2015, 12.20pm (day 1,444)

Valve, 8/8/15

Beautiful, sunny day, spent out with the family at the Keighley & Worth Valley railway. I pick this valve as today’s shot because I think it looks like a space station. Go on, tell me you see it.

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The Terminator’s pet T. Rex

Thursday 16th February 2012, 5.20pm (day 175)

Metal dinosaur, 16/2/12

Sensational happenings in St Peter’s Square, Manchester city centre, this evening, as this photographer snaps undeniable proof that we have, indeed, been attacked by killer robots from outer space. I would have stuck around to collect marketable shots of the aftermath, but I had to go home for my tea. (There are more on Facebook, if you are interested.)

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