Reflections from the Road

Following publication of my book The Road of Hope and Sorrow: by bike along the Western Front of the Great War, I started this blog to address the many questions that arose as I cycled from Flanders to Alsace about how and why the Great War started, and who took the decisions that launched such a destructive conflict, and why.

Since these questions were very much a part of my ride , I am starting by highlighting the moments in my ride along the Western Front when these arose, with reference to the relevant sections of my book. Later in this article, I will define the questions more concisely and describe how I started to go about finding answers.

Passchendaele, Artois, Vimy Ridge, Arras, and the Somme:  already a million dead

The first notable moment in this journey was as I approached Albert, having ridden south from Flanders through the Ypres battlefields, including Passchendaele, then through Artois, over Vimy Ridge and the northern sector of the Somme. Given what I had seen and learned thus far, it was hardly surprising that my thoughts turned to questions about the causes of the war: 

As I reached Albert, found the campsite, and set up my tent, I was thinking back over just how many soldiers had died or been seriously wounded in and around the places I’d ridden through over the last few days. There had been the major battlefields of Ypres and Passchendaele, Lorette Hill, Arras, and The Somme, not to mention the smaller battles of Yser, Fromelles, Aubers, Loos, and countless others. The bodies were piling up beside my route, at least a million dead from both sides and many more wounded so far, and they were following me now.

So, those questions about how a war as terrible as this could have happened, were now becoming an ever-present part of my thoughts, as day-by-day, I rode further along the Western Front. I had some sketchy knowledge, and like pretty much everybody knew that the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand seemed to kick off the conflagration. I’d gathered some more bits and pieces on the wider context from the museums, but these were little more than a veneer of underlying causes and antecedents. Surely, I thought, there is no way that the assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne would trigger a war like this if Europe’s Great Powers had not had other big issues at stake. Sooner or later, I would have to spend time trying to understand how this war started, and why. 

From Chapter 8: Known Unto God (page 149)

I also wanted to know who took the decisisons to go to war, and why

A week and several hundred kilometres later, following my exploration of the Verdun battlefields, the site of the longest and one of the most destructive battles of the Great War, I rode south to the fiercely contested ridge of Les Éparges and the memorial at Pointe-X overlooking the Woevre Plain.

There, I had discovered the writing of Maurice Genevoix, the soldier-author of Ceux de 14 - Les Éparges (The Men of 1914 ‘- Les Éparges) and the anguished questions he asked following his experience of the fighting for this ridge, where he was wounded seriously enough to be taken out of the rest of the war.

The follwoing excerpt from his book (Chapter 5- The Graves) poses fundamental questions about the purpose of the war, and coming from a French officer who fought there, had a big impact on my thinking at the time I came across it among the shell and mine craters on the ridge of Les Éparges:   

Why are we fighting now, and in this way? To defend what? Win what? Already thousands dead for this fragment of a hill whose top remains beyond our reach. To kill Boches? Wear them out? But men can only be killed this way by sacrificing others, in the same or even greater numbers. And why?

As I continued south through this now tranquil landscape, I reflected on what I had seen and read and decided that I could not let these matters rest: 

Here, in the quiet countryside and small, pretty villages of the Longeau valley, my mind was made up. I would go beyond simply noting the sequence of events that led up to the Great War, as I had been trying to do from my reading and museum visits. I would need to go much further, to harness what was fast becoming a fierce determination to find out who took the fateful decisions that set Europe on the course to conflict.

I wanted to understand why they took those decisions and who bore the responsibility. The substance of this new journey would have to await my return home, but while still on the road I could at least make a start, processing all I had learned so far and taking in what more I could find during the remaining days of my ride. 

Chapter 19: The Writers of Les Éparges (page 414)

But what can I do?

Why asks Maurice Genevoix, and why indeed? That is what I needed to find out. In the cemeteries and at the memorials I had visited each day in what had become the ritual element of my pilgrimage, I had struggled to hear the voices of all those young men who seemed to hold me back, to prevent me from leaving, as if I had not yet done enough to honour their short lives and untimely deaths. Until, at Montsec (page 421), I sensed they were urging me never to forget, and to do something to prevent this happening again.

A call to action

Picking up on this call to action, for that it what it felt like to me at the time, by the time I reached the battlefield of La Fontanelle (Hill 627) in the Vosges foothills, I was looking to constructive ways of responding: 

I was seeking transformation in a number of ways on this journey, but perhaps my repeated, ritual visits, and the reflection these engendered, were leading me towards a new purpose.

Could I perhaps contribute in some way to preventing the pain, loss and destruction of conflict? That seemed a bit ambitious, to say the least, and I had no idea even where to start. I needed to begin with something more accessible.

What about promoting what I had been discovering about remembrance and reconciliation on the Western Front, and the importance and value of that?

Understanding the causes of the Great War would be a good start, and with my new mission reinforced by Verdun and the writing of Maurice Genevoix, I would hopefully also gain some insights into those burning questions of responsibility.

Here at Hill 627, surrounded by the old trenches, neat rows of gravestones, evocative paintings and the stories of those two soldiers*, I was still feeling dubious as to whether I could achieve anything genuinely useful. What can one person do, given how many others have devoted their working lives to the very difficult and complex tasks of preserving peace and defusing conflict? But raising awareness of much of what I had seen was at least a positive and practical way to start, and worth a try. And was this perhaps the first stirrings of an evolving, more outward-looking expression of my inner mission of reparation?

Chapter 22: Hill 627 (page 461)

* This refers to the memorable stories of two ordinary men, a French soldier, Marcel Frambonne and a German officer, Hermann Schützinger, drawn into the war and fighting each other here at Hill 627, and which are posted on an information panel at the Fontanelle memorial site.

Publishing my book about the experience of exploring the Western Front by bike was my principal response to the 'But what can I do?' conundrum, through which I was hoping to inspire others to make their own journeys and ask their own questions.

Finally, in the Epilogue of my book, I looked back on the journey and everything that I had experienced and felt, I began to formulate a concrete plan of action:   

My first step would need to be a return to the history of the Great War. For how could I make an informed contribution to helping promote the understanding of war and securing peace, however modest, if I did not myself have a clear appreciation of the causes, and possess at least some answers to questions of responsibility and accountability? While it is the case that the circumstances leading to any given war are in some respects unique, so one should be cautious of generalisations, the Great War was in many ways the defining historical event of the twentieth century. It set the scene for many of the key political, social and institutional changes and events that followed, including arguably, the conditions that led to the Second World War. So, it is a good place to start.

Epilogue (page 509)

My questions on the causes of, and responsibility for, the Great War

So, here are those questions about causes of, and responsibility for, the Great War that pre-occupied me on a daily basis as I cycled the Western Front, more or less in the chronological order (or distance into my Western Front ride) in which they arose:

1.      What were the key historical events that led up to the moment that the belligerent countries declared war in 1914, and how far back in history does one need to go to properly understand this sequence of events? 

2.      Who made the decisions that brought this about? What were the most consequential among those decisions, and why were they taken?

3.      What were these influential political, diplomatic and military people thinking at that time? What were their motivations, and did those include the idea that war was a legitimate and acceptable means of achieving their policy goals. 

4.      Were some, at least, of these influential people trying at all costs to preserve peace, despite rising international tensions, and if so, who were they and why did they not prevail?

5.      Are the answers to these questions about causes and responsibility for the Great War relevant to the situation we are in today? In other words, are there useful and important lessons from history here, or does this all belong to an earlier era that was quite different from the modern world? On the other hand, if what we can learn about the causes of The Great War does offer warnings about the risks of a new large-scale conflict, what does this tells us about whether and how this could be avoided?

Are the causes of the Great War at all relelvant to the risk of major conflict in the contemporary world?

In respect of my last question, I would add that over the last few years as war rages between Russia and Ukraine, yet again in the Middle East, and with mounting tensions around Taiwan and in the South China Sea I have heard a number of historians speak about how they fear that the conditions prior to 1914, and which led to a catastrophic war then, echo those they see in today’s world. The most powerful expression of this perspective that I have found to date is by Odd Arne Westad (Elihu Professor of History and Global Affairs at Yale University) in his compelling and unsettling recent book The Coming Storm: Power, Conflict and Warnings from History (Allen Lane, 2026) in which he writes:

If there are lessons from history, now is the time when we need to heed them, so that we do not end up in another Great Power war because of the fatal combinations of jingoism, fear, fatalism and sheer stupidity that set of the first major conflict of the twentieth century.

The great majority of people alive today have come of age in a world of remarkable stability, presided over by one or two Superpowers. This is not to say that the world has been peaceful; but it has to an extent been predictable. As an increasing number of Great Powers now jostle for regional supremacy our world has become more fragile, unpredictable – and combustible.

To understand the threats that face us in this complex new terrain, we must look to the lessons of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century – a time when Great Powers clashed and sought regional dominance, when nationalism and populism were on the rise, and many felt that globalization had failed them: a time, in other words, that carries eerie parallels with our own.

Odd Arne Westad (2026)

And note that here he is referring to ‘the first major conflict of the twentieth century, that is the First World War, not the Second. I’ll return to Westad’s narrative in later parts of this blog as I believe it is highly relevant to my exploration of this topic.

So, understanding the causes of, and responsibility for, the Great War, seems to be a highly relevant objective for anyone who, like me, has been immersed for several weeks in the history of the Western Front, and is now highly motivated to examine contemporary questions about the avoidance or war and the preservation of peace.

Are the causes of the Great War not already well-established?

Many people might believe that the causes of the Great War are already clear and well-established. In fact, as will become apparent across the pages of my blog, this is far from being the case. Indeed, as I will go on to document in Part 2 of this Blog, several of the eminent historians who have written extensively on the subject have expressed the view that the causes are neither fully understood, nor is debate about these closed.

First steps of a new journey

So, I remain determined to make my own efforts to understand this challenging topic. When I got home after my ride in 2016, I decided to take the first steps of this new journey, starting by looking for recent, academic histories that offered what I needed most, namely balanced and reliable factual accounts with thoughtful interpretation.

Sources, struggles and strategies

Having decided to take on this challenge, I will explain in Part 2: Unravelling the Tangled Threads of History, how I went about finding suitable historical sources and then found myself struggling with a level of detail and complexity that threatened to overwhelm defeat me in this endeavour. That was until I developed a strategy for organising the vast amount of interconnected historical information through the development of a synchronous timeline, documenting the key events, actions and decisions involving all the Imperial Great Powers and other countries that went to war in 1914. This helped me see and understand the threads of cause and effect, over time and across countries, whch in turn allowed me to draw my own conclusions about what led to European (and global) war in August 1914, and who were the chief protagonists in that tragedy. 

A comment on the title of this blog

Before moving on to the first stage of my new journey of historical discovery, I should comment on the title I have chosen for this blog, namely, Imperial Ambitions and Fateful Alliances: a cyclist’s journey through the causes of the Great War.

Imperial Ambitions and Fateful Alliances are core elements of the story and more insights into these will emerge as the story evolves.

In respect of the second part of my blog title: a cyclist's journey through the causes of the Great War, well, there is no question that I could not literally have cycled through the causes as that would have required travelling halfway around the world, and given the monumental changes in geopolitics in the intervening century in those parts of the world formerly controlled by the belligerent imperial powers, I would probably also have needed access to a time machine.

But it was my journey along the Western Front that stimulated that fierce determination to find answers to these questions and once started out on this journey of historical enquiry, to persist in dealing with the complexities and making sense of the varied and sometimes conflicting interpretations of the very extensive body of historical evidence I have explored.

So, a cyclist’s journey it is. This project is above all the product of the inquisitive mind of a cyclist responding to immersion in the awful reality of the Great War on the Western Front and being unable to set aside the resulting questions on cause and responsibility.

Having really enjoyed Tom Isitt’s Riding the Zone Rouge: The Tour of the Battlefields 1919 – Cycling’s Toughest-Ever Stage Race, a fascinating book telling the story of the 1919 cycle race held through the devastated battlefields of the Western Front and Tom’s own ride along the route, I was excited to see and start reading his latest book, Thunder in the Mountains: The First World War on the Italian Front.

I wanted to find out what Tom might make of my adventures along the Western Front and how I had written these up in The Road of Hope and Sorrow. I felt it would be worthwhile sharing what another author with an enduring interest in the Great War, and who is clearly also committed to the concept of exploring history by bike, might have to say.

Here are Tom’s comments:

I’ve read a dozen or so books about travelling the Western Front of the Great War, from an immediate post-war pilgrimage by Henry Williamson to more recent walks by notables such as Sir Anthony Seldon. I even wrote my own book about cycling the Western Front in the wheeltracks of the 1919 Circuit des Champs de Batailles bike race. I’ve visited the Western Front more than 20 times, and feel I know it quite well.

Many of these books follow an established pattern, interspersing a bit of Great War history with a lot of the author’s more or less interesting observations and anecdotes. So, when I received a review copy of The Road of Hope and Sorrow, I was interested, but not hopeful that it would add much to the genre. I was very wrong.

The first surprise was the size of the book, a large-format paperback with 536 pages, weighing 1.27kg. It definitely passes the “drop test” — it makes a hefty thud if you drop it on a coffee table. The next surprise was the sheer quantity and quality of photos, maps, and illustrations: more than two hundred contemporary photos and almost sixty archive images, thirty maps, nine war art reproductions by the likes of Anna Airy, Olive Mudie-Cooke, Paul Nash, Richard Jack and Otto Dix, and ten wonderful line-drawings by the author.

Nigel Bruce is clearly a very accomplished photographer, cartographer, and artist, and the design and layout of the book makes it feel more like a magazine than a book. It’s visually very appealing, and the text is broken up with First World War art, poetry, and tables laying out the progress of various battles in a very clear way.

With regards to the text, I’m not a Western Front expert so am in no position to critique the historical stuff, but I didn’t find any obvious howlers and Bruce’s words are authoritative, but not too dry. The same applies to his cycling narrative, which doesn’t get bogged down with the minutiae of the ride, but gives enough of a flavour to make me want to get back on my bike and head for France and Belgium. But in some ways the cycling is almost incidental, it doesn’t overwhelm the rest of the book, and this book would work equally well as a driving companion.

Another thing I really liked about The Road of Hope and Sorrow is each chapter begins with a sort of list of what’s in the chapter. This was very common in books published at the beginning of the 20th century, and is a nod in the direction of old-style publishing in a very modern-looking book.

It’s been quite a while since I read something that really wowed me, but The Road of Hope and Sorrow did just that. Some of his observations about the benefits of cycling the battlefields, and making maps of those battlefields, really struck a chord with me, and as I read it I felt that we are very like-minded battlefield tourists. The multi-talented Bruce has produced something very engaging, visually appealing, and readable.

Tom Isitt
Historian, explorer, photographer, and author of two recent books themed on exploring the Great War by bike:

1. Riding the Zone Rouge: Cycling’s Toughest-Ever Stage Race (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2019)
2. Thunder in the Mountains: The First World War on the Italian Front (Helion Books, 2026)

Once I have completed reading Thunder in the Mountains, I’ll add some of my thoughts here on this fascinating book. Perhaps the first thing to say is that Tom Isitt’s book is very welcome, indeed long overdue, as despite the political importance of the Italian Front and the vast human cost of the fighting in some of the most appalling conditions, in comparison with what is available for the Western Front, there is very little out there to inform and guide travellers wishing to explore the mountain battlefields and Great War history of the conflict between Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Since the 18th Century, Macclesfield and the surrounding towns and villages found wealth through the weaving and printing of silk, an industry that was strongly influenced by European technology and skills, and the vagaries of wars and trade. As Nigel Bruce discovered on a cyle tour of silk industry heritage around Macclesfield, processing of this highly sought-after fabric lives on in the beautiful landscape of East Cheshire, not just in memory at Macclesfield's Silk Museum, but also (just about) through a few remaining local industrial enterprises.

How did silk manufacturing come to Macclesfield?

“It was Charles Roe who really gave the silk industry here a jolt by importing Italian throwing machines, then the most advanced in the world”, explained Tim Lightfoot, a retired police officer now sharing his passion for social history as a guide at Macclesfield’s fascinating Silk Museum. “Just nearby,” he added, “you can see the plaque commemorating Roe’s work and the stream with old sluice gates off Pickford Street that powered his machines.”

The plaque notes how Roe ‘prospered’ from this investment. “Others could see him making serious money”, said Tim “and they moved in; they could also see the real wealth was in weaving, which led to the mills.” And that is when Cheshire’s silk industry really took off.

This is very much a Cheshire story, which started with local entrepreneurs and working people using silk to add a luxurious finish to buttons, the manufacture of which was already well-established in the area. It is also a story of the powerful impact of European technology and expertise on the fortunes of the industry, along with the influences of war and trade across the Continent.

I explored Cheshire’s silk heritage by bike, taking two days to get a feel for the landscape, the rivers that powered the machines, and to seek out other traces of this once great industry in old mills, weaver’s cottages and the grand houses of the industrialists.

The Macclesfield Silk Museum – a great starting point for exploring the history of silk in Cheshire

Macclesfield Silk Museum seemed the obvious starting point. Full of remarkable information, stories and artefacts, the jewel in the crown is a guided tour of the extraordinary Paradise Mill, just nearby. Frozen in time when the business closed in 1981, a whole floor houses Europe’s largest collection of Jacquard hand looms in their original location. Their operation is expertly explained and demonstrated by volunteer guides, including Tim and his colleague Trish Halloran.

I might add that cycling the steep lanes of East Cheshire's can be very hard work, but it turned out to be very rewarding.

A transformational technology

The invention in 1804 of the Jacquard loom not only revolutionised patterned weaving of silk and other textiles but also stimulated the science of computing.

Frenchman Joseph Marie Jacquard, working for his master-weaver father at the laborious task of manually lifting warp threads (it was these that controlled the pattern woven into the fabric), starting building upon earlier French innovations to create an automated system using punched cards.

The Paradise Mill

Watching this ingenious device in operation on the Paradise Mill looms, it is easy to see the dramatic impact it would have had on the speed at which patterned silk could be woven. Jacquard looms did not have a significant impact on silk weaving in Britain until the 1820s, however, due to the Napoleonic wars of 1803-15.

Human and political influences on the fortunes of silk manufacturing in Cheshire

In addition to the impacts of European technology and wars, there were also important human influences on silk manufacture. French protestant Huguenots, many of whom were expert silk weavers, had settled in London’s Spitalfields as refugees fleeing an upsurge in religious persecution following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 by Louis XIV. Their weaving skills, poetically referred to as ‘The Mysteries of The Strangers’, led to the development of a vibrant silk weaving community in East London. Some of these Huguenot weavers moved north to Macclesfield, others to Sudbury in Suffolk which today is the largest centre of silk manufacture in Britain.

One of my favourite items in the Silk Museum was a dress made from the silk emergency maps used by RAF pilots in the Second World War. The rich variety of this collection is also illustrated by the cases of Egyptian artefacts and the story of how they came to be here in Macclesfield. In 1873 Marianne Brocklehurst, whose father was the silk manufacturer John Brocklehurst, set off with her companion Mary Booth (collectively, these two ladies were  referred to as the ‘MBs’), to travel up the Nile, exploring and helping to conserve Egyptian history through their association with Amelia Edwards, founder of the Egyptian Exploration Society.

Day 1 ride: A circuit from Bollington via clues to silk heritage on the borderers of the Peak District

Impressed by what I had seen in the Museum and Paradise Mill, and with some foundation of knowledge about Cheshire’s silk heritage, it was now time to get on the bike and explore the area that saw this fascinating industry develop. I began in Congleton at the former silk mill at Higher Washford. Beside the mill, which retains an impressive 5.5 metre diameter cast-iron waterwheel, the river Dane flows dramatically over a weir, demonstrating the power available to drive the spinning machines and looms.

Riding out of the town via the Biddulph Valley Way, I climbed up around The Cloud – that impressive prow of sandstone visible right across the Cheshire plain - and on through quiet, pretty lanes to Danebridge with its own intriguing links to the silk story.

Landscape – so easily appreciated from the saddle - holds many clues, some quite subtle. It was through a passing comment from Tim Lightfoot as he wove and talked, that my attention settled on the verdant moss adorning the stone walls following the sinuous contours of the Peak District’s western flank. “Another reason for silk being here is the climate,” said Tim. “It is damp, and that helped to keep the thread pliable, avoiding breaks.”

Just before Danebridge, I passed Swythamley Hall, once home to the silk manufacturer, banker and Liberal MP John Brocklehurst, whose daughter was the Egyptologist Marianne.

A Ship Inn many miles from a navigable river or the sea?

Needing refreshment, I headed to The Ship Inn at Wincle, one of my family’s favourite stops on walks in the surrounding hills. This time, I was determined to solve the mystery of its name and the painted sign illustrating a late 19th Century vessel held fast in a frozen landscape (see photo caption for the answer to this mystery).

A solid, comfortable looking house, known as ‘Bagstones’, set in a pretty, mature garden on a lane not far above the Ship Inn, was once the home of the ‘MBs’. Finding this house completed my silk trail around this prettiest of stone-built villages, nestling among steep wooded hillsides that run down to the rushing waters of the river Dane.

Wincle’s setting beside that river means that the cyclist cannot escape from this little haven without tackling one or another very steep hill.  Selecting a low gear and a positive mental attitude, I headed slowly north, crossed the A54 road from Leek to Buxton, then rode along the dramatic ridge of Barlow Hill, exposed to the full and exhilarating force of a vicious spring storm.

Beyond Haddon, and much as I love storms, I was by then very relieved that my route descended rapidly into the sheltered Bollin valley at Sutton Lane Ends. From here, my route back to Congleton took me through Gawsworth, famed for its beautiful 15th Century Elizabethan Hall. But it was the early 18th Century Gawsworth New Hall that I particularly wanted to see, as this was once the home of William Birchenough, another of the Macclesfield silk company owners.

Construction of this Grade II* listed stately home was started in 1707 by Lord Charles Mohun, an indebted, gambling landowner and Whig politician. His fondness for fighting duels led to his demise when he was killed in November 1712 in a famous contest with James Douglas, 4th Duke of Hamilton with whom he had a long-running dispute over the estate. While estate ownership was ostensibly the pretext for an encounter that proved fatal for both contestants, the real story may lie with an attempt to silence Mohun’s opposition to efforts by Hamilton, at that time a special envoy to Paris, to secure peace in the War of the Spanish Succession, although exactly why that should have justified a duel has remained elusive.

Day 2: Weavers homes and silk manufacturers in Cheshire

Inspired by how much I had already discovered on the bike, I stayed over in Macclesfield and the next day set out on a second ride that took me north out of Macclesfield, through Bollington, and back into the hills. Early in this ride, I climbed the aptly named Blaze Hill, a truly beastly challenge that ascends 180 metres over 2.5 km with a maximum gradient of 14.5%.

This brought me to Rainow, and then over to Langley where weaver’s cottages, like those in Paradise Street in Macclesfield, demonstrate the large attic windows designed to provide good light for the throwing machines and looms. Langley is also home to Adamley, a high-quality silk printing enterprise using silk screen and digital printing and housing a large archive of historic print designs https://adamley.co.uk/

On my tour, I visited another one of the Cheshire’s (at that time) thriving textile companies, RA Smart Holdings of Bollington, which specialised in patterned weaving and printing of silk and other fabrics. It is fittingly situated beside the old Adelphi Silk Mill, the Macclesfield Canal and the former railway which is now the Middlewood Way.

The owner, Ron Smart, whom I met and who kindly showed me around the factory, brought a silk screen printing concern here from northern Italy after working there for a several years, and developed this through the 1980s. He had developed sophisticated silk screen, acid dye and digital printing facilities and was running four Jacquard looms producing, among other designs, the sought-after ‘Macclesfield Neats’, so favoured for ties.

Glancing up at the portrait of Joseph Jacquard in his office, he explained that he still values his links with Italy; “I have taught the staff, all of whom are local, but my source of knowledge is from Como, my mentors are in Como”.

Watching the high-speed looms in operation was an impressive sight, especially as I reflected that the Jacquard ‘heads’ were simply an up-to-date version of an early 19th Century invention, controlled by software and computers rather than punched cards. The looms and most of the other technology that Ron Smart uses are all European, with the exception of the digital printers which are Japanese.

“The British technology is long gone, long gone”, he mused. “I chose the Italian Jacquards and looms so I could always ring them and say what do you think ...”. 

While China remains the source of Ron Smart’s raw silk, the thread is processed in Italy; “I use an Italian supplier because of the quality”, he said, adding that “this is particularly important for the warp threads - the looms run so much better”.

Like Adamley, Ron Smart’s textile business seemed to be thriving at the time of my rides and visit to the factory , reaching markets in Europe, Asia and the US, and he felt that his personal links were strong enough to protect him against future changes in trade relationships with Europe (i.e. from Brexit). Sadly, however, in April 2026, RA Smart (Holdings) became insolvent and is currently in administration, with the industrial units and machinery up for sale, so this silk weaving and printing business has finally closed down and joined the long list of local silk enterprises that eventually fell victim to economic and political forces. I recently met with Ron Smart again at his office where he is managing all the affairs of wrapping up the business. “ We lost business during the Covid pandemic,” he said, “ and sadly it never properly recovered, “So with fixed costs rising, it has not been possible to maintain a sustainable business, and our closure will leave a big hole as there is no one else in the country doing the weaving and printing (especially the acid dye printing of fabrics such as cashmere wool) that we were able to produce”. I asked exactly which among these ‘fixed costs’ were the culprits, to which he replied “Well, the usual … it’s increasing labour costs, with higher national insurance and pension contributions, and energy – we pay far more for energy here in the UK than they do in Europe and it’s not easy there either.” The portrait of Joseph Jacquard, I noted, still hangs above the desk in Ron’ Smart’s office.

Historically, the fortunes of Macclesfield’s silk industry have fluctuated greatly with events across the Channel. Huguenot (French protestant) refugees brought their silk weaving skills, and Charles Roe kick-started the industry with Italian technology. The 18^th and 19^th Century wars with France reduced access to the French silk desired by wealthy English women, so promoting the local manufacturing; at the same time, these conflicts delayed the adoption of Jacquard’s transformational technology in England. Business then boomed, until the late 1820’s when European free trade agreements reduced tariffs on imported French silk. There were further ups and downs, with production of parachutes in WW2 (until the use of nylon started in 1942), then decline once more as textile manufacture moved to Asia.

Cycling back into Macclesfield, the traces of silk are everywhere in the street names and buildings. Among the highlights are the weaver's houses in Paradise Street, Charles Roe House (now a wellbeing centre and cafe), and the Sunday School for the silk workers’ children. Among the churches are St Michael's with its memorial window to the Brocklehurst family, and Christ’s Church which was built by Charles Roe and is where he is buried.

Opposite the Travel Lodge, itself converted from the former Royal Silk Warehouse, is the extraordinary Grade II* listed Arighi Bianchi building.

This architectural delight [illustrated in the header photo], best appreciated in the evening light, is another reminder, as if one were needed, of Macclesfield's links to the world of European silk and the impact of refugees fleeing conflict.

Antonio Arighi and his nephew Antonio Bianchi originally came from the silk village of Casnate on the shores of Lake Como in 1854 to escape the Italian civil war and established themselves as cabinet makers.

Macclesfield is looking to promote its links with China, building on its past and current industrial heritage, and on the idea of being located at the western end of ‘The Silk Road’ stretching from the Far East to Europe.

One other active silk business (supplying high quality silk, and patterned fabrics that were being printed by RA Smart’s company in Bollington) in this part of Cheshire is Bennett Silks based a little further north in Stockport. Established in 1904 by William Henry Bennett in Manchester, it is according to the company’s website, still entirely in the Bennett family's hands, run by William Henry Bennett's great grandson Mike and his wife Joyce, who are leading the company through further expansion with the establishment of substantial silk weaving interests in Europe, India & China.

The company web site goes on to describe their contemporary European partnership, and how in 2016, ‘a fifty percent shareholding was purchased in French weaving mill FCN Textiles, giving Bennett Silks its own European production facility in the heart of the French silk area in Fourneaux, a town to the northwest of Lyon. This acquisition proved even more beneficial in 2021, enabling the creation of Bennett Silks Europe to counter the extra charges and complications inflicted on EU customers since Brexit. Bennett Silks' EU customers can continue to order safe in the knowledge that their goods will be delivered exactly as they always have been with no extra charges or delays.’

All of which further emphasises the importance of connections of our island nation with the continent of Europe, and not just for silk.

Information and links

• Macclesfield Silk Museum: https://macclesfieldmuseums.co.uk/
• Paradise Mill guided tours (booking required) https://macclesfieldmuseums.co.uk/venues/paradise-mill
• Macclesfield Visitor Information Centre: https://www.visitmacclesfield.co.uk/macclesfield-visitor-information-centre/
• Museum of Silk, Como, Italy: https://www.museosetacomo.com/?lang_id=2
• Bennett Silks, Stockport UK: https://www.bennett-silks.co.uk/ 
• FCN Textiles (France): https://www.fcn-textiles.com/ 

All photos © Nigel Bruce 2019