TRWBM: 2014.92 – sample of wool fabric, in black, possibly piece dyed, labelled 08259 pattern number, 6pcs , produced by Samuel Salter & Co. Ltd., Home & Stone Mills, Court Street, Trowbridge, Wiltshire, before 1983
Home Mill is now the home of Trowbridge Museum and, for the whole of its working life, from 1772 to 1982, it operated under the proud name of ‘Salter’. It was founded by Ephraim Salter in 1772 on the site of the ‘Home Farm’ of Trowbridge Manor. On Ephraim’s death it was run by his son, Samuel. Samuel Salter & Co was a producer of West of England Woollen Cloth; a strong, dense, napped woollen cloth famous for is durability and high quality.
Salters produced a wide range of cloth designs some of which are pictured below:
In 1835 Salters’ premises were described as ‘several workshops,’ but by 1837 the site was cleared and a building of five storeys was put up. In 1839 Hadens supplied a 35 horsepower engine and subsequently moved several machines from Stone Mill nearby. However, there were obviously many other older buildings of ‘extensive and irregular proportions’ still on the site in 1862, when the ‘immense pile of buildings’ was burnt to the ground in a spectacular fire. The mill was rebuilt by the then partners of Salters; Gouldsmith and Hayward, but later suffered extensive damage in another fire in 1931, after which the 5th floor was never replaced.
Despite the two major fires, a bankruptcy and a variety of owners, the firm kept its name and held its head high until the very end of the cloth industry in Trowbridge in 1982, when it was closed down by the last firm to run the mill, Illingworth Morris of Yorkshire. A sales catalogue of 1913, when ownership passed from William Walker to Ronald Taylor, states that the ground floor of this building contained the press shop, cutting shop, washing, fulling and gig mills. The four upper floors contained the mules, condensers, doubling machines. A boiler house and engine house, large loom shed, warping and winding shed, dye house and more sheds and buildings were located around this main building.
We have an extensive array of objects in our collection related to Salters, almost 1400! We have tools like burling irons and scissors, bill heads and letters, photographs and oral history records and best of all we have our Museum. The very building which was once Home Mills and now stands as the towns tribute to it’s rich woollen past.
