The Bleachfield
Across from the fountain in River Road was the Bleachfield factory. This bleachfield was erected by Mr McKenzie, a merchant of Glasgow, in 1741. The Carmylefield as it was sometimes known, was noted for the beauty of its situation and created many jobs in the area, according to the Statistical Accounts of Old or West Monklands 1794:
“About 50 people are employed; men get 7s (shillings) and women 5s per week.
“Many thousand pieces of light muslin are done here annually. This field, which contains upwards of 10 acres has some peculiar advantages. There is a well 6 feet deep, which fills in 12 hours. the water is carried 510 feet and runs 3 gallons in a minute.
“Much praise is due to the proprietors for their attention to the morals of their servants.”
20th century proprietors included the “Parks” family, who lived in the Mansion House which stood on the area, presently occupied by a hairdresser’s, grocer’s, fish and chips, butcher’s and Indian food shops.
Bleachfield in the background
Mr McKellar was the owner when the Bleachfield closed in 1961. The factory was bought by William Morris, the furniture manufacturer, who employed many of the Bleachfield workers, and it became known as the “Chair Works”. However, it too closed resulting this time in a fair amount of unemployment. By the 1980’s ninety private houses had been built on the site, now known as the Ardargie Estate.
I will try to give you this story as handed down to me by my uncle.
The Bleachfield was a factory in Carmyle by the River Clyde. Most residents will remember that. The cloth came from Nottingham and Manchester, and was bleached or finished at the Bleachfield. Many years before, the cloth was bleached on the “Green” - there is now a bridle path across the “Green” but l am sure it will always be known as the Bleachfield Green.
Now, as to the Bleachfield itself My uncle worked there, but he used to refer to the “Berricks “. He actually meant ‘~Barracks” where soldiers and French prisoners were kept. Atone time a stone with the date “17” was on the outside wall, but the stone was lost during the demolition. There were a few houses nearby and several managers lived in them. The army officers had their quarters there too.
I can remember at a bend in the road there was a small opening and through chinks in wood I could look down in the gloom and see machinery and maybe a worker passing in front of my vision. One woman I could always see was very small and had a clubfoot. Mothers and daughters, fathers and sons all worked there. A horn started their day and ended it. Opposite the en trance to the factory was a row of little houses with attic rooms upstairs. These houses were called the “Burn Butts” and the families who lived there worked in the Bleachfield.
In 1952 1 worked in the Bleachfield. I started at what was called the “cans”. They were like giant size tins of beans lying in a figure eight. The cloth had been washed and treated in the mercerising room next door. The material came through a hole in the wall above a machine, was fed into the cans, still wet, and by the time it came out at my end it was all dried, and looked as if someone had ironed it flat.
There were ginghams, poplins, beautiful white linens, ladies’ and gents’ bordered handkerchiefs and plain white ones, still to be hemmed. We separated them into different barrows. They were taken to another flat where a machine rolled the cloth onto a large pole-like contraption. After that, the material was sent upstairs to other machines, worked by girls, which Put the cloth into one-yard folds, so that when they were examined they could be opened like a book. Any dirty marks were washed and dried with a hand iron, then passed to another table where yards were counted, or how many hankies in a bale. The final table of workers parcelled and labelled the bales ready for transporting to the customers.
During the war, the factory supplied the material for barrage balloons and shirts for the Royal Air Force.
Workers at Bleachfield Gate
James Park & Co. Finishers, Carmyle. Bales on route. ‘Rab’ Haddow at the reins
I worked in the Bleachfleld in 1953. My job was to examine the material before it was parcelled and ready for despatch. The cloth was folded like a book, which I turned over like pages. If there was a speck of dirt, I would wash and iron that bit. Sometimes, it was an oily mark from one of the machines and wouldn’t wash off Then it became a reject and was used as rags, or taken by the workers for use at home. Many a Carmyle man or boy had a lovely poplin shirtfront, with his jacket hiding the patched back and sleeves, and there were very few dirty noses in the village, as the Bleachfleld hankies were passed on to family and friends. They were not even hemmed around the edges. Patched bedmats were also very popular and are still in use, in some households, today. The material was of the flnest quality and made to last.
On the day I left to get married, my coat was covered in strips of material, sewn on by hand. I was lifted into an old pram, and a large wally potty, filled with salt and a little plastic doll, was put into my hands. My workmates pushed me, in the pram, all round the village. It was a memorable day!
