Uncovering Carlisle’s Textile Revolution: Upperby School

Our two main large banners will be made up of approximately 30 printed pieces for each class and using a tessellated brick design will symbolize our journey in building our knowledge of the history of our local textile heritage. Using our notes and drawings from looking through our sketchbooks and our blog last week, we started to think about what we could include on our individual piece which was our decision. It needs to be bold, bright and striking as it will be seen from a distance   We will use a combination of techniques to achieve this. We started by adding blocks of colour - some made by printing and others by painting.  A really good print using impressed polystyrene tile We masked off areas then used fabric paint to paint blocks of bright colour. Some engraved textile inspired drawings into foam and printed onto the fabric. Over the next few weeks we shall be adding more detail.  We aim to have two or three ...

This week we switched our design emphasis from our own identity to what we have learned over the last school year about the history of the textile industries in Carlisle. For our research, we visited our blog to remind ourselves what we had achieved and made notes or drawings of what we may like to include in our design. We won't use everything but will have plenty to choose from.

Carlisle Cotton Spinner's Banner - Tullie House Museum We shall be designing and making two banners, one for each class for display in Carlisle Library and today Jac and Katie told us about banners. We learned that banners are a form of communication.  Whether it is today or 150 years ago, groups or organisations with a marching tradition have made banners to identify themselves and what they stand for. Stephen White, historian from Carlisle Library had told us that before 1832 being a member of a trade society and meeting together was illegal.  Those that did - the Chartists - all had banners to identify who they were and what they stood for.  These may have started as a small wall hanging then sewn onto a bigger piece of material, then painted.  Thousands of Chartists banners were made yet none survive. These banners can contain a lot of information and can be 'read' by historians in much the same way as documents. We then went onto look in mo...

Having learned about the Carlisle Ship Canal, our ships are all ready and waiting to sail along the Canal into Carlisle carrying cotton and coal for the mills.  Our construction plan For this session, we moved into the activity room at our school to build our constructed 3D map of the Carlisle Ship Canal.  First we planned what we needed to build - starting from Port Carlisle following the route of the Canal for over eleven miles into the centre of Carlisle.  We identified we needed some buildings in Port Carlisle - there were only two at the start of the Canal - going past farms into Burgh then building locks and bridges, the Canal Basin then the industries in Carlisle such as the Mills and Shaddon Mill and Dixon's Chimney.  Using recycled materials and other basic materials we set about building our canal...... Mill building Shaddon Mill under construction Locks under construction Ship carrying cotton ...

Carlisle Ship Canal by local historian and author David Ramshaw  - As part of tracing the journey of raw cotton to the Mills in Carlisle we today learned how cotton made its way from the port of Whitehaven into the centre of Carlisle. Britain was developing fast - there was a high need for a cheap and reliable way to transfer raw and manufactured materials to and from the new factories and canal building was at its height.  Factories were being built in Carlisle to meet the demand replacing the hand loom weavers and more people were coming into Carlisle to work in the mills.  But Carlisle had poor transport links - goods were transported to and from Carlisle to the Solway ports by horse and cart along inadequate roads.  A river - the Eden connected Carlisle to the sea but was shallow, ships could get so far but ran aground.  The local council looked at the possibility of building a canal from the Solway coast to Newcastle - money was raised by the sale o...