Do You Have Nature Deficit Disorder?

“The need of quiet, the need of air, the need of exercise, and the sight of sky and of things growing, seem human needs common to all” – Octavia Hill , Co-founder of the National Trust Feeling sluggish, stressed or anxious? Been slumped over a computer all week, or feeling overwhelmed by your hectic urban lifestyle?…

Exciting times ahead at Quarry Bank…

With the Quarry Bank Project entering its second year, we are all set for a very exciting 2016. The Glasshouse The Glasshouse restoration is already underway and when the garden opens again on Saturday 13 February you can see for yourselves how things are coming along.  Throughout the spring and summer you will be able…

Ronjul – reflecting on 2015 at Quarry Bank

  Hi, I was talking to Angharad our new Archives and Collections Officer the other day and she told me about Ronjul (I should add here that she’s Welsh not Norweigian!).  The Norwegians have a name for the week between Christmas and the New Year which is Ronjul and part of the tradition surrounding this…

Adding to the atmosphere – behind the scenes of the Quarry Bank Project

The key to why we have embarked on the Quarry Bank Project, is that it will allow us to tell more of the incredible stories about this unique place. We can’t do this alone though and we are extremely fortunate that Hannah Barker, chair of Manchester Histories and expert in the Industrial Revolution has agreed to…

Voices of the Mill Workers

Hi, This week Helen our Collections and Archive Intern discovered some letters written by workers at Quarry Bank.  I could not wait to find out more, so over to Helen. Working in the archives, it can sometimes be easy to overlook the day to day experiences of the workers at the mill amongst the many…

Quarry Bank has won the Lottery

Hello everyone, my name is Emma and I am the project coordinator for the Quarry Bank Project. Over the next few years I will be joining the blogging team to relay all the wonderful things happening with the Quarry Bank Project. As you may be aware, back in January, Quarry Bank was awarded a £3.9million…

Printing block collection and a 70 piece puzzle

Hi, Museums are like icebergs, what you see is only a fraction of what is really there.  Quarry Bank is no exception and in the unassuming rooms at the back of the Mill, which house the collection and archive, are many intriguing items. The Drawn Out of Love exhibition has taught me a lot about…

Meet the Interns

I’m handing over to Sophie for this post, our new Visitor Experience Intern. Hello! My name is Sophie and I’ll be bringing you behind the scenes sneak-peeks, tales of the staff and volunteers hard work in the Mill and across the estate, and lots more stories from the goldmine that is Quarry Bank’s archive. I…

Piecing together Robert and Mary’s Romance

Well folks, this is my last ever blog post as I leave Quarry Bank for pastures new, and I have decided to end my tenure as blog creator & editor by returning once more to one of my favourite stories from the archive; the romance of Robert Hyde Greg and Mary Phillips, and I warn…

‘Keep up with jargon in four languages’ – a Greg summer holiday

Our cataloguing project is still under way and we are still discovering new information about the Greg family and the workers. One of our archive volunteers, Ian, has been working on the letters relating to a family holiday taken by Robert Hyde Greg and his family in the 1850s… In the summer of 1857, Robert…

How our visitors care for Quarry Bank – the Bell Tower, the water wheel, cobbles and glasshouses

In two weeks the National Trust will have entered its Winter season, and many of the mansions and houses we look after will close to carry out important conservation works on the buildings and their collections. Whilst we reduce our open days from 7 to 5 here at Quarry Bank, we are also busy getting…

Through the Keyhole in Styal Village

A couple of weeks ago I gave you a behind the scenes look inside Quarry Bank House, and we all saw how the other half lived as it were. Well today, I had to go into No. 13 Oak Cottage, in Styal Village, known to us at Quarry Bank as the ‘pickled cottage’. I thought…