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10/11/2025 3 min read
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Verdant Works Museum

Old Skills, New Hands at the Verdant Works Loom

At Verdant Works, there’s always something clattering quietly behind the scenes.

A small repair, a bit of maintenance, or a careful demonstration that keeps our collections not just on display, but alive.

Recently, our Accredited Museum team took on a fascinating example of these tasks in the mill’s atmospheric Machine Hall, the home of the museum’s working industrial machinery: adding a new beam to the Verdant Works loom. 

David Reid, our Collections Curator, tells us more…

Behind the scenes at Verdant Works Museum, where visitors can see the last working jute machinery in Dundee

There’s a quiet satisfaction in seeing an old craft brought to life again. Just a few weeks ago, the mill was filled with the soft rhythm of work and the murmur of shared knowledge as we added a new beam to the loom.

It’s a task that requires a practiced hand. And thankfully, one of our long-standing volunteers, Lily, who spent years in the city’s jute mills, was on hand to advise the Curatorial team, as well as tutoring David, a newer member of the volunteer team, through the process.

Watching the two work side by side was a reminder of how the skills and traditions of Dundee’s jute heritage exist not only in the nuts and bolts of our machinery, but in the people who care for it. 

The Verdant Works loom: a twentieth-century industrial loom for weaving threads of jute into fabric

Fitting a new beam is no small undertaking. It’s the foundation of the weaving process, holding the warp threads that will eventually form the cloth. Every inch has to be lined up perfectly—each thread tensioned just so—to ensure the fabric runs smoothly once the loom begins its rhythmic work.

Back in the heyday of the mills, this process was second nature to the thousands of skilled mill-workers who handled these looms every day. For us today, it’s an exercise in rediscovering that knowledge, often through the experience and memory of those who lived it first-hand. 

Lily explained each step patiently, showing how to secure the beam, check the alignment, and prepare the threads for winding. Our volunteer David listened intently, asking questions, learning the terms for parts of the loom, and handling tools that have seen generations of use. There was something almost timeless about the scene. The machinery might be over a century old, but the focus and teamwork felt fresh and alive. 

Here, Lily demonstrates the process of tying in the new beam…

Moments like this remind us that Verdant Works is more than a museum, but a living link to Dundee’s industrial past.

Every time a beam is fitted, a shuttle thrown, or a length of jute cloth rolled off the loom, we are all reconnecting with the people whose lives and labours powered the city’s industry and secured its identity as a place of skill and craftsmanship for over 200 years.

DUNIH 531.37 – Photograph of the weaving shed at the former Constable Works on Dura Street, showing women weavers at the looms. This photograph shows the scale of the industry in just one of the Dundee mills during the heyday of the jute industry.

As the new beam was finally set in place and the loom stood ready once more, there was a quiet sense of pride in the room. For our new volunteer, it was a moment of accomplishment; for the experienced hand, a satisfaction in knowing that the old skills are being passed on.

And for all of us, it was a reminder that heritage isn’t something static or finished. It is something we have the responsibility and the privilege to keep alive: one beam, one thread, and one shared lesson at a time. 

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