Crossroads and Characters

14. WATER, HORSE AND PETROL POWER.

A water-wheel, fed by a lade running from a nearby corn mill, powered the machinery of this building when it was active as a mill. Though cotton was the village's principal product in the mid-1800's, an account of 1844 described Dunning as having a mill at which a considerable woollen manufactury was carried on, and a map of 1859 identified this building as a spinning-mill (presumably supplying village handloom weavers). The building was a good example of how a village adapts to change. After being a mill, it was added to and became a smithy at which horses were shed: that's how it appears in this postcard of (probably) the early 1900's. After an interim period in which it was used both as a livery stable and a place where the new horseless carriages were serviced, it became the garage and petrol station it is today.