THIS bird’s-eye view of Goose Eye was photographed more than a century ago when it was still a working hamlet, thanks to Turkey Mill with its rather elegant chimney.
Goose Eye had been involved in the paper-making industry since 1822 when John Town had built Turkey Mill, though by the time it closed down in 1932 it was run by Messrs Portals Ltd, of Laverstoke in Hampshire. It was then employing a hundred workers, producing paper for Indian rupees and Australian banknotes.
“When I was last in Goose Eye,” commented a Yorkshire Observer reporter, “they had just dried off three and a half tons of five-pound note paper for the Australian Government. This had come off the machine at 50 feet a minute, the pulp being watermarked at lightning speed by a secret process.”
However, in 1932 shortage of work was the reason given for the closure although some employees transferred to branches of Portals elsewhere. Turkey Mill was subsequently used for storing sugar and wool.
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