SHUTTLES, STEAM & SOOT - A COTTON MILL IN LANCASHIRE photo exhibition by Daniel Meadows at Queen St Mill Museum, Burnley

 

                                                       Well worth a visit 

SHUTTLES, STEAM & SOOT - A COTTON MILL IN LANCASHIRE photo exhibition by Daniel Meadows at Queen St Mill Museum, Burnley 

Daniel Meadows returns to Lancashire. This facsimile exhibition recreates an original touring show from the 1970s, when these extraordinary photographs were taken, documenting working life in Queen Street Mill, Bancroft Shed in Barnoldswick and even atop a 150 foot chimney stack!

Shuttles, Steam and Soot premieres at Queen Street Mill Textile Museum from 8 July 2026 before touring to other Lancashire locations. The photographer visits for an ‘in conversation’ on Saturday 18 July. Daniel Meadows is now widely recognised as a pioneer of twentieth century documentary photography. His archive is now held in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. 

Back in 1975, the young Daniel Meadows began two years as photographer-in residence to Pendle Borough Council, with support from Mid Pennine Arts. Here, he found himself drawn to Queen Street Mill, and especially to Bancroft Shed, the last surviving steam powered cotton weaving mill in Pendle. Daniel began documenting the life of the mills and getting to know the people who worked in them. From weaver and radical organiser Bessie Dickinson, to Bancroft Shed engineer Stanley Graham, flue cleaner Charlie Sutton and steeplejack Peter Tatham, he created a uniquely vivid portrait of Lancashire’s workers and their disappearing trades. 

Shuttles, Steam and Soot was first exhibited in 1978, as part of the Half Moon Photography Workshop’s radical programme of affordable, portable, touring shows. Touring widely from galleries to community centres, from the Shetland Islands to Germany, the exhibition reached a huge audience before it was eventually lost. Fifty years on, Daniel worked with Four Corners in London’s East End to recreate faithfully the original touring exhibition. A rarely seen body of work by a towering figure in British photography, we are thrilled to bring it, and Daniel, back to Lancashire. 

Shuttles, Steam and Soot will continue its journey by returning to the very locations where these unforgettable images were captured. Shuttles, Steam and Soot will be exhibited at Queen Street Mill from Wednesday 8 July to Saturday 29th August. It will then be seen from September at the Bancroft Mill Engine Museum and further Pennine Lancashire locations.

Daniel Meadows returns to Queen Street Mill on Saturday 18 July for an ‘in conversation’ with Laurie Peake MBE, Director of British Textile Biennial. 

Shuttles, Steam and Soot in Lancashire is a Pendle Radicals tour presented by Mid Pennine Arts with support from British Textile Biennial, Queen Street Mill Textile Museum and Lancashire County Council. 

                         The noise of the factory helped invent a new way of communicating 

                                     High temperatures but no high wages for keeping factory cooler 

One of the myths that male workers put around was that women workers were lazy so when Meadows saw the tackler fast asleep at work he could not pass by the chance to take his photo! 

                       

                                                               Done your time in hell 

Charlie Sutton - "Knackered at fifty," he says, After a lifetime of cleaning flues, 

                            he's looking forward to selling-up and retiring.

                                            "When it comes to my time of dyin' 

                                               To the Lord they're goin' to tell:

                                                  'Lord, it's the inside man from Weldone'

                                                     And he'll say: 'Come right into heaven lad.

                                                      They've done your time in hell."