Qualla: Hat Works

Hat Works: Introduction

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Zzztriple2000, CC BY 3.0. A 200-foot red brick chimney rises above the railway viaduct in Stockport, slender and improbable, looking down on Greater Manchester's bus station. It belongs to Wellington Mill, the seven-storey fireproof cotton mill of 1830 that ended its working life making felt and straw hats. The chimney once vented four Lancashire boilers; today it watches over the UK's only museum dedicated entirely to the hat-making trade. Stockport, after all, was hatting country for more than 400 years.

Read more: Hat Works on Qualla

Image: Zzztriple2000 | CC BY 3.0

Hat Works: Iron Bones, Brick Vaults

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mikey. Cropped by Nicholasjf21 (talk), CC BY 2.0. Wellington Mill was built between 1828 and 1831 for the Marsland family, a 135-foot-long block on Daw Bank in the lee of Stockport's growing industrial sprawl. Its makers were among the early generation of mill builders trying to defeat the great fear of the cotton trade: fire. T...

Read more: Hat Works on Qualla

Image: Mikey. Cropped by Nicholasjf21 (talk) | CC BY 2.0

Hat Works: Spinning Mules and Steam

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Polishname, Public domain. An 1830 beam engine with a 7-foot stroke and a 17-foot beam first turned the line shafts; the position of the engine house took clever advantage of a culvert that already carried water to the family printing works next door, water needed for the condenser. The first engine was re...

Read more: Hat Works on Qualla

Image: Polishname | Public domain

Hat Works: From Cotton to Hats

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User:Andreeg2001, Public domain. Sarah Ward opened a hat warehouse in 1848, and in 1895 her family's firm, Ward Brothers, moved into the old cotton mill. They were finishers and trimmers, not felters, so they bought their wool bodies ready-made from Denton and Stockport. The mill needed little adaptation. A new ...

Read more: Hat Works on Qualla

Image: User:Andreeg2001 | Public domain

Hat Works: The Last Felt Hat

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Zzztriple2000, CC BY 3.0. Wilson's at Denton closed in 1980. Christy's, the great old name in the trade, held on until 1997. When the door shut behind the last worker, more than 400 years of hatting in the Stockport and Denton area came to an end, and a way of working that had once clothed the heads of so...

Read more: Hat Works on Qualla

Image: Zzztriple2000 | CC BY 3.0

Hat Works: What Survives

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Dixon, CC BY-SA 2.0. The mill's original engine houses are gone, and the adjoining six-storey Daw Bank Mill has been demolished. So has the privy tower that once stood beside the stair tower. What remains is the great fireproof block itself, two seven-storey wings beside the stair tower, the round ch...

Read more: Hat Works on Qualla

Image: David Dixon | CC BY-SA 2.0