Rope Making

Text: Malcolm Dick

Image: This photograph of about 1897 shows Lowe’s Rope Manufactory, the most important in Bewdley, against a steam train and railway viaduct of the Severn Valley Railway. To the left finished ropes are shown laid up on stretchers. In the yard two men stand in the background with two-wheeled carts in front.

[Image from: Bewdley Museum]

Summary

The records of Lowe’s Rope Manufactory provide a detailed picture of one significant Bewdley business. They provide an insight into the experiences of its owners and workers and the nature of its markets and customers in the 19th and 20th centuries. Remarkably, photographs also survive, which present people at work, the tools they used and the machines which turned flax into rope and twine. These varied sources enable more to be written about this local industry than most other manufacturing concerns in the town.