New Lanark is a complex of cotton mills and associated village in Clydesdale, South West Scotland, founded in 1786 to take advantage of water power from the fast-descending River Clyde. From 1800 to 1825 it was run by the social reformer Robert Owen, who made it a model community and planned town, influential in concepts of urban planning and welfare reform. It has a well-preserved architectural unity and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Until the 18th century, textile production was a domestic affair: a loom powered by hand or foot-treadle would take up a room, with the family living around it. This "cottage industry" couldn't compete with bigger mills powered by waterwheels - the cost of production per item fell dramatically, but such goods had to be mass-produced, and textile workers became hired labour who no longer "owned the means of production." The new owners were a wealthy minority or anonymous companies who could make the necessary capital investment; they saw little of and cared less for their workers, whose conditions were often squalid. A few reformers tried to buck the trend, one such being Robert Owen (1771-1858). He believed that welfare of his workers and their families was not just a religious and moral imperative, but sound business strategy. When he took over New Lanark he made it into a beacon of "utopian socialism", whose workers were (by the standards of the day) well-housed and well-fed, and their children well-schooled. And, for a time, it succeeded.
The waterwheel was the prime mover, powering every machine by a series of shafts, pulleys and drive belts, so everything had to cluster nearby. It couldn't power domestic work, which remained hard manual graft - so the reformist mind started to think of communal solutions to tasks such as laundry, food preparation and heating. And Robert Owen was the intellectual prime mover, driving all the enterprises in the village while dreaming and scheming of the broader reform of society. New Lanark fostered political theories as efficiently as it turned out cotton shirts, with Bentham, Wilberforce, Marx and Engels all visiting the same mills yet coming to very different conclusions.
Owen managed the mill complex until 1825, then moved to New Harmony, Indiana USA, to continue his social project on a grander scale. That only lasted two years before collapsing in rancour and debt, and other similar experiments were failing. As steam replaced water power, mills and cities grew bigger, and couldn't get by just on community spirit. If families were to be housed and educated properly, the government needed to act, and not leave it to the benevolence of individual entrepreneurs. The 19th century vision thus evolved from model communities to welfare state.
New Lanark stayed in business after Owen but as a one-company village it was vulnerable to the ups and downs of the cotton trade, and the mills closed in 1968. The village fell into disrepair and was at risk of being demolished, but it eventually passed to the New Lanark Trust, who restored it as a tourist attraction. Some 200 people live here nowadays.
All transport routes are via Lanark 📍, which has frequent trains and buses from Glasgow, and connections from Edinburgh.
New Lanark is two miles south of Lanark and is well-signposted; so you could walk from there, or up the Clyde Walkway which ends here.
Stuarts Coach 135 runs between Lanark and New Lanark Visitor Centre, M-Sa hourly and two per hour Sunday, an eight minute ride. Make sure to get the direct bus, as between runs the bus circles Lanark town.
By car, approach along Braxfield Rd then hair-pin down New Lanark Rd (dead-end) and use the main car park next to the Visitor Centre at the top of the steep hill above the village. Blue-badge holders may park down in the village, but there are only 8 spaces: if feasible arrange to drop off / pick up in the village leaving the car in the main car park.
Walk.
New Lanark Mills 📍 is a compact village of well-preserved 18th century mills and homes, presented as they were in the 1820s. Start at the Visitor Centre, open daily April-Oct 10:00-17:00, Nov-March 10:00-16:00. "Passport" tickets cover all the attractions (below) and include two guided tours. Prices in 2022 are adult £12, child £6, conc £9, plus £3 for parking. "Passports" are valid for single entry within 12 months, but 3-4 hours is enough to get around the place.
Dundaff Linn is reached first, a drop of 10 ft. In the pool above is the take-off for the millrace, which is also fed by the Ponclair Burn. Corra Linn next is the highest at 84 ft, with the ruins of Corra Castle and Bonnington Pavilion nearby. Bonnington Linn is the 30 ft drop at the top of the sequence.
Clyde Walkway and cycle track runs along the Clyde for 40 miles from Glasgow (Partick) via Cambuslang, Strathclyde Country Park, Cardies Bridge and Crossford to New Lanark. The final 7 mile section is the most scenic, passing Stonybyres HE Power Station and 21 m falls, Lanark, New Lanark Mills, Bonnington HE Station and the three upper Falls of Clyde, ending at Bonnington Linn.
The gift shop is open daily 10:00-17:00.
The hotel restaurant is the only place open in the evening, see Lanark for other options.
Mill Cafe is open daily 11:00-16:00.
As of Oct 2022, New Lanark and the approach road from Lanark have 4G from EE, Three and Vodafone but no signal from O2. 5G has not reached this area.
Related: UNESCO World Heritage List
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