It was in this very place that James Hargreaves invented the Spinning Jenny in 1764, a machine that helped to revolutionise the textile industry and paved the way for the development of the great mills and factories that created the original Northern Powerhouse.

It was also the scene of riots in 1768 when anxious handloom weaves, feeling threatened and fearful for their livelihoods, entered Hargreaves’ cottage and smashed this machine along with a further twenty or so stored and operated at Brookside Mill.