Coldharbour Working Wool Museum

Coldharbour Mill, 12 km east of Tiverton, is one of the outstanding monuments of the textile industry of the West of England. The elegant mill in the classical style was built in 1799 by the Quaker entrepreneur Thomas Fox to spin woollen and worsted yarns, and was extended at various times in the nineteenth century. It was re-opened as a museum enterprise in 1982, and still produces high quality worsted knitting yarns. Visitors are able to see in the machines in operation. The shafting is powered at one end by a 5 m X 6 m high breast-shot waterwheel, and at the other by a 320 hp horizontal cross compound steam engine, built by Pollitt & Wigzell in 1910.