THE Queen Street Mill Manufacturing Company built its iconic mill in 1894.

In its hay day, the mill had 990 looms working none stop to produce thousands of tonnes of cloth.

The completed cloth was taken by horse and cart and train to finishers for bleaching and dyeing.

Its hundreds of weavers were paid by piecework, a good four-loom weaver was paid 24 shillings a week in its early days, only slightly less than the tackler.

It became a focal point for a large chunk of the community in the town with generations of families working there.

In August 1915, there was a strike which lasted for several weeks due to pay being lower than other mills in the area.

Many of its workers were shareholders and took a dividend from the mill profits and refused to join the strike.

The issue was resulted in December of that year as war bonuses came into effect and this gave the workers the increased wages.

It closed in March 1982 and was rescued by what was known as Burnley Borough Council in 1983 and turned into a textile museum three years later.

In 2015 Lancashire County Council announced it was withdrawing funding to the museum and it shut the following year.

It is now only open for pre-booked school groups and from Easter to the end of October during 2019.