New Lanark
New Lanark is a restored 18th-century village located in a gorge in Southern Scotland. A large part of its fame is due to Robert Owen, the philanthropist and Utopian idealist, who served as mill manager from 1800-25. Owen transformed life in New Lanark with ideas and opportunities which were revolutionary at the time and in stark contrast to the infamous "dark, satantic mills" of the industrial revolution. At New Lanark child labour and corporal punishment did not exist, and villagers were provided with decent homes, schooling for children and evening classes for adults, free health care, and affordable food in the village store.
As we explored the sandstone cotton mills, the spacious and well-designed workers' housing, Robert Owen's house, and particularly the school, it was easy to imagine how people lived and worked in the early 19th century. Two award-winning attractions helped complete the picture, both a hit with Kassie: the magical New Millennium Experience, in which participants sit in capsules and are literally transported to a future reminiscent of Owen's ideas and vision; and an audio-visual theatre show called "Annie McLeod's Story", in which the ghost of a young mill-girl appears on stage and tells us of her experiences at New Lanark in the early 1820s.
Just beyond the village is the Falls of Clyde Wildlife Reserve, a richly wooded area with sandstone gorges and the dramatic Falls of Clyde, the inspiration for many a painter and poet, including JMW Turner, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Burns. Along the Clyde Walkway we managed to get separated, Kassie and John choosing an alternate route, and caught up with one another above Corra Linn in the impressive Clyde Gorge, where the photo at lower left was taken.
New Lanark is a living community, and the village is in the care of an independent charity. Profits from the hotel, hostel and visitor attractions help the Conservation Trust continue to restore and maintain the historic village, which became an UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2001.
To learn about another Victorian factory village, check out our visit to Port Sunlight.
Date of Our Last Visit: August 2004