The Mill – Series 2 – best behind the scenes photos

Back at the end of April, Darlow Smithson were in their final week of filming the second series of The Mill, and I took it upon myself to loiter around the set taking photo after photo after photo. In the end I had around 300 pictures and one slightly irked producer after I accidentally wandered…

Children of The Mill by David Hanson

To accompany the second series of The Mill, a book has been released which explores the lives of the apprentices at Quarry Bank, from the beginnings of the apprentice system in the 1790s, to its end in 1847. The book is called Children of The Mill, by David Hanson. Back in July we held a…

The Mill Series 2 – interviews with Kerrie Hayes, Andrew Lee Potts and Matthew McNulty

Have you been enjoying The Mill on Channel 4? Who’s your favourite character at the moment? Whilst they were filming here at Quarry Bank, the National Trust managed to grab some one-on-one time with some of the cast and find out what their thoughts were on their characters and on Series 2. Warning – the…

The Mill – Series 2 – behind the scenes – exploring the set

Back in April, myself and other staff members, who helped out with the filming of The Mill, were invited to the studio set in Media City. Darlow Smithson Productions have been kind enough to allow me to share the photos I took of the fantastically detailed sets. I apologise in advance if the photos look…

The Mill Series 2, Episode 1 – The Poor Laws

Series 2 of The Mill has kicked off  by exploring of one of the most contentious pieces of legislation of the 19th century; The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, which saw the wide-scale introduction of the infamous workhouse, as we greet a brand new family; the Howletts. Daniel Bate: Robert Greg’s asked the Poor…

The Mill Series 2 Press Pack from Channel 4

Yesterday, Channel 4 released their press pack for Series 2 of The Mill. It’s absolutely jam packed full of information about the second series, as well as loads of information about the fact behind the fiction that we here at Quarry Bank supplied them with, and even the article first featured here on the blog…

The Mill – Series 1 Catch up and a look ahead to Series 2

For those of you living in the UK, you may have spotted a few TV adverts reminding you that you can catch up with Series 1 of The Mill, ahead of Series 2 which is due to air at the end of July. I thought today that I would direct you to a few previous…

The Mill – Series 2 – Behind the Scenes

We’ve been keeping fairly schtum these past few weeks about the fact that Channel 4 and Darlow Smithson Productions are back at Quarry Bank, filming series 2 of ‘The Mill’. It’s once more been a brilliant, hectic, surreal experience having them back , and on the days filming took place in the Mill Yard, all…

Apprentices vs workers

Now that the cataloguing volunteers have worked their way through the vast amount of Greg letters, they have shifted their focus towards documents relating to the business. One such document was written by Robert Hyde Greg titled “List of apprentices and their value as compared with other workers”, dated December 1837. As the title suggests,…

The ‘real’ Esther Price

If you’ve been watching The Mill you’ll know that Esther Price’s story is central to the series.  As I’ve been discussing here on the blog, with most historical dramas some parts of the truth are adapted to make the story seem more compelling or to fit in with story lines –  and so I wanted the opportunity…

The fact that inspired the fiction…

For the past couple of posts I’ve been talking about The Mill on Channel 4 and how the archive material here at Quarry Bank was the fact that inspired the series. This week I decided to take a trip to the archive to see Ally, our Collection and Archive Officer, to find out exactly what…

Apprentice life at Quarry Bank

So who watched The Mill last night on Channel 4? If you did you’ll already have seen that the plight of the apprentices is a central part of the story – but what was life really like for the apprentices of Quarry Bank? Between 1790 and the 1830s approximately one-third of Samuel Greg’s workforce were…