Hat Works, Industrial museum in Stockport, United Kingdom
Hat Works is an industrial museum housed in Wellington Mill, a Victorian factory building that displays machinery, tools, and hats from different periods and regions worldwide. The structure preserves the layout of a working hat factory with multiple exhibition spaces showing how production happened.
The museum opened in 2000 inside a Grade II listed Victorian mill building, marking the preservation of Stockport's hat manufacturing sector. This location once represented the heart of a major hat industry that shaped the town's economic and social development.
The exhibition displays the role of hat making in shaping the local community through photographs, objects, and stories shared by factory workers. These personal accounts show how this craft shaped daily life and work in the town.
Visitors can book guided tours of the factory floor on specific dates, with visits suitable for people aged 8 and older. Stairs are needed to access different levels of the building, so visitors should consider their physical ability to climb.
The facility operates working Victorian-era hat-making machines that show the complete manufacturing process from raw materials to finished product. These machines reveal how labor-intensive and skilled the craft truly was.
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