About
Dunkirk Mill sits on the Nailsworth Stream between Nailsworth and Stroud, in one of the steep Cotswold valleys where the Gloucestershire woollen industry concentrated. The Stroud valleys produced cloth of international reputation — the scarlet broadcloth of British army uniforms and the West of England fine woollens — and at the peak there were scores of mills strung along these streams, taking their power from the fall of water down the slopes.
Dunkirk was among the largest. The surviving buildings are substantial, and most of the complex has been converted to residential use, but the Stroudwater Textile Trust maintains a museum in part of it, built around an object that repays the journey: an overshot waterwheel of cast iron and steel, twelve feet wide and thirteen feet in diameter with forty steel buckets, installed in 1855 and made by James Ferrabee of Stroud. It still turns, driven by the stream, and it still drives machinery.
That is the point of the place. Rather than a static display of textile equipment, Dunkirk shows historic machinery running under water power, and the guides concentrate on the finishing processes — what happened to cloth after it came off the loom. Fulling, raising the nap with teasels, and shearing it level were the operations that turned woven fabric into saleable West of England cloth, and they were the most skilled and the most jealously guarded part of the trade. A nineteenth-century cross-cutter from Wallbridge Mill is among the machines demonstrated.
Visits are guided, at set times, on a limited number of open days between April and September. The mill is reached by an attractive walk down the former railway track from Egypt Mill in Nailsworth, and the museum is fully wheelchair accessible with an accessible toilet — unusual for an industrial site of this kind.
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Plan Your Visit
⏱️ Recommended Visit Duration
💡 Visitor Tips
- ⚠ Check the trust's published open dates before travelling. The mill opens only on a limited number of advertised days between April and September, not every weekend.
- Visits are guided at 2:00pm and 3:00pm and last about 45 minutes — arrive in time for a tour rather than expecting to wander in.
- The wheel needs water: after a long dry spell the stream may not be sufficient to run it. Ask when booking if seeing it turn is the point.
- Park at Egypt Mill in Nailsworth and walk down the old railway path, about seven hundred metres and level. Blue Badge holders can park at the museum itself.
- The museum is fully wheelchair accessible with an accessible toilet, which is rare for a working watermill.
- Prices differ between sources — the trust's own site gives adult £7 and child £2, while combined open-day listings advertise less. Check when booking.
- Entry is free during the national Heritage Open Days in September, which is the busiest and best-value time to come.
- Combine with the trust's Gigg Mill nearby, which covers weaving, so you see both halves of the cloth-making process.
Highlights
The 1855 waterwheel
The mill's overshot wheel is an impressive cast iron and steel structure twelve feet wide and thirteen feet in diameter, carrying forty steel buckets, installed in 1855 and built by James Ferrabee of Stroud — a local engineering firm of real standing. It is driven by the Nailsworth Stream and still turns on open days, though prolonged dry weather can leave insufficient water to run it.
Standing beside a wheel of this size under load, feeling the building take the drive, is the reason the journey is worth making.
Machinery running under water power
What distinguishes Dunkirk from most textile museums is that the historic machinery is driven directly by the waterwheel rather than displayed static or turned by a modern motor. Visitors watch the power travel from wheel to shafting to machine, which makes the whole logic of a water-powered mill — why it had to be here, on this stream, at this fall — immediately legible.
Guides run the equipment during the tour and explain what each machine did to the cloth passing through it.
Cloth finishing and the teasel
The tour concentrates on finishing, the processes applied after the cloth left the loom, which is where the West of England trade made its reputation. Fulling shrank and felted the woven fabric; raising lifted a nap on the surface using the hooked heads of teasels, a plant grown commercially for the purpose and never bettered by a metal substitute; and shearing cut that nap perfectly level.
These were the most skilled operations in the trade, and understanding them explains why Stroud cloth commanded the price it did.
The Wallbridge cross-cutter
Among the machines shown is a nineteenth-century cross-cutter brought from Wallbridge Mill at Stroud, used for shearing the raised nap from cloth. Machines of this kind displaced the hand shearmen, among the most highly skilled and best-organised workers in the industry, and their introduction was fiercely resisted — Gloucestershire saw serious unrest over cloth-finishing machinery in the early nineteenth century.
The object therefore carries an industrial-relations story as well as a technical one, and the guides tell it.
Collections
The Stroudwater Textile Trust's museum at Dunkirk Mill preserves and operates water-powered machinery associated with the finishing of woollen cloth in the Stroud valleys. The principal object is the overshot waterwheel of 1855 by James Ferrabee of Stroud, twelve feet wide and thirteen feet in diameter with forty steel buckets, driven by the Nailsworth Stream and used to power historic machinery during guided visits.
Machine collections cover fulling, raising with teasels and shearing, including a nineteenth-century cross-cutter from Wallbridge Mill.
Supporting material documents the Gloucestershire woollen industry, the mills of the Stroud, Nailsworth and Chalford valleys, the trade in scarlet broadcloth and West of England woollens, and the industrial unrest that accompanied mechanised cloth finishing.
The waterwheel and drive
The 1855 Ferrabee overshot wheel and the shafting that carries its power to the machine floor, run during guided visits.
Cloth finishing machinery
Fulling, raising and shearing equipment including the Wallbridge cross-cutter, demonstrated under water power.
Themes
Time Periods
Current Exhibitions
No current exhibitions. Please check the museum website for updates.