Fires at Sunny Bank Mills

Sunny bank Mills has known many fires over the years, including one in 1944, in this very building, the Twisting Gallery and you can still see the stone wall to your right marked orange from the heat. More recently, in 2008, the day before the manufacturing company was to be sold, a spark created by the scrap men as they cut out an old machine, had fallen between the floorboards and set alight some dry combustible material. It was the sprinklers that put out the fire and saved over a million pounds worth of luxury wool cloth that formed a large part of that sale.