The English Sewing Cotton Company Scrapbook

 "The Buildings of England - Derbyshire " by Nikolaus Pevsner. Extracts regarding ESCC mills. Cromford: It was at Cromford that Richard Arkwright started the first successful cotton-spinning mill worked by water power. The foundation date is 1771, and the original mill still stands...it is three storeys high but was originally five, two storeys having been removed after a fire in 1930. The stone block at the W end of the group is also early (before 1777): three storeys, mullioned windows, and lintels and sills forming continuous bands. Of the big seven storey block at the E end, under construction according to Bray in 1777, only fragments remain after a fire in the C.19. The buildings of C.1790 along the road have no windows on the lower floors and suggest a defence against industrial spies and rioters. The buildings, all constructed with timber and not fireproof like those at Belper, are grouped round an irregular courtyard. It looks rather grim now and must always have look

Rifle Green is an old colour. The earliest reference that I can find to this shade dates to 1824. It is associated with the Rifle brigade of the British army, formed during the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century. They wore green tunics instead of the usual red for camouflage, as rather than directly face the enemy it was their role to hide and pick them off individually.  Our Sylko shade D352 however dates from 1935 - the same year as King George V's jubilee celebrations (marked by the shade D349). It is one of those shades selected by the British Colour Council - see my previous blog post  https://englishsewingjournal.blogspot.com/2024/01/cotton-colours-of-1930s.html  Newspapers reported on the new shades in the second half of that year, with Rifle Green often being put together with another shade called Vagabond Green. I don't think that this latter shade made it to Sylko (though it may be the case that I just haven't seen it yet!). The colour shades either side of