Did you know the National Trust doesn’t allow photography at most of its sites? I didn’t until today. I asked a guy if it would be OK to take photos if I didn’t use the flash, and he said the flash wasn’t the problem; it was the copyrights. I was allowed to take photos provided I signed a form saying that all photos taken were not to be used commercially, and that the copyright was to be assigned to the National Trust.

This is just wrong. I’m sure a Registered Artist can explain more eloquently than I about how a scene is merely the raw material which is wrought into Art ™ by the skill of the photographer. The view might belong to them, but the photos are mine!

I would have been happy to agree not to use the photos commercially (as if anyone wants to buy snaps of some rainy saturday at t’mill!), but demanding I give away the copyright seems a bit heavy handed. Perhaps it’s the only way they can enforce the no-commercial-use agreement.

Anyway, I signed the agreement and took their photographs of their property for them.

Halfway round, a Yorkshire-accented guide said “Have you asked anyone if you can take photos?” quite aggressively. I said yes and pointed to the little sticker they gave me to prove it. He said “OK. We have to ask. To stop the pervs.”

Pervs?

“Yes. To stop the perverts.”

Er….?

“To stop them taking photos of the children.”

Ah, he’s being funny! I thought. I was at Quarry Bank Mill, an 18th century cotton mill, where hundreds of children were employed to do things that required small fingers, small bodies, or small wage expectations. I thought the guide was joking about how some people wanted to take photos of the worker kids. I was about to point out that light actually travels rather fast, and that it would take something of a physical miracle for anyone to take photos of people who were here 200 years ago, when he continued:

“Yeah, we get a lot of school children coming round.”

Oh. Er. He was actually talking about kids on school visits. So there you have it: the National Trust’s anti-perv policy is to ban cameras. Or maybe the guy was just as insane as working in a weaving shed might make you.

Anyway, here are some pictures which you can steal (from the NT, remember) for your GCSE History project, or simply admire for their pre-Victorian steampunkery.

A shaft from the old water wheel. It’s as big as it looks, as long as it looks big. This nice lady not only knows how to weave; she knows the head of my department at Manchester Uni! Some cotton Some more cotton Cottonough for ya? Why, now you come to mention it, it is cotton! Do not tempt me Brilliant engineers spent their lives dreaming up this contraption, and I can’t even remember what it does. A spinning mule, I believe. Worth a closer look. Everything was covered in cotton dust and fluff, especially the lungs of the workers. Some gears Apparently the grease was donated by Shell. Go Shell! The water wheel interior. Too dark to shoot by hand, behind brushed plastic to foil flashes, and too cramped for a tripod. Truly uncapturable. Up the chimney or not at all! The very big water wheel. 44 tons I think. It’s grim up north. The mill, from the weir.