WHEN textile weaving moved from the handloom cottages into the mills, power came from the huge steam engines, which drove many tonne flywheels.

Rudimentary looms meant that many hundreds of weavers were need to work the looms which made Lancashire's textiles.

As time and machinery progressed, semi automatic looms, such as the Lancashire loom, made by Howard and Bullough and then fully automatic looms, like the Northrop loom made in Blackburn, meant fewer and fewer weavers needed to employed.

Rather than run a four loom, textile workers could oversea a dozen or more and it was exactly the same in the spinning sheds- as this photograph from the Telegraph archives reveals.

It was taken in 1970 in Moseley Mill, in Darwen, which was the first new spinning mill to be built in Lancashire for 45 years.

And as you can see just one operative is required to oversee the spools on this extensive ring spinning frame.

Moseley Mill was built as an important addition to the William Baird subsidiary, India Mills in Darwen, which was then 100 years old, being opened in the 1870s by Eccles Shorrock.

It was named after the chairman and managing director Arthur Moseley, but after being taken over by carrington Viyella, closed in 1991.