[6] According to the Council of Europe, the mill with Styal village make up "the most complete and least altered factory colony of the Industrial Revolution.

[7] Quarry Bank Mill is on the outskirts of Styal in Cheshire, abutting and to the south of Manchester Airport.

Samuel Greg leased land at Quarrell Hole on Pownall Fee from Lord Stamford, who imposed a condition that "none of the surrounding trees should be pruned, felled or lopped"; maintaining the woodland character of the area.

One reason for selecting this location was the "suitable head of water provided by the River Bollin and its proximity to the Bridgewater Canal and thus Liverpool".

[11] The mill's iron water wheel, the fourth to be installed, was designed by Thomas Hewes and built between 1816 and 1820.

The Hewes wheel broke in 1904 but the River Bollin continued to power the mill through two water turbines.

[14] It was restored in 2017 in a manner that ensured that "all primary features dating from the Greg family’s occupation have been retained", and was opened to visits by the public by the National Trust.

[15][16] Samuel Greg, like Robert Owen, who built New Lanark, attempted to bring the structured order of a country village to his new industrial centres.

[20] The mill provided the "earliest recorded occupational health service in this country", according to an article in the British Journal of Industrial Medicine.

At the time, the consensus was that the children were better off in labour than they would have been under 'the step-motherly care of the Poor Law'", according to a reliable source.

He hired a superintendent to attend to their care and morals and members of the Greg family and external tutors gave them lessons.

Initially, schooling was provided only for boys, for an hour on three evenings of the week, at most; by 1833 the mill claimed that girls were also getting some education on Sunday afternoons.

[27] A comparative study of child mill workers of the era by Katrina Honeyman indicated that "those at Quarry Bank were treated 'better than average', but that the Gregs were not amongst the best employers in the country".

A former director of the Quarry Bank Mill, and author of a book about Hannah Greg, provided this summary of child labour, based on extensive research.

"New areas have been restored and for the first time ever visitors can now explore the complete industrial heritage site at Quarry Bank".

[35] Quarry Bank is an example of an early, rural, cotton-spinning mill that was initially dependent on water power.

Its design was functional and unadorned, growing out of the pragmatism of the men who felt no need to make a bold architectural statement.

It was designed to use water frames which had just come out of patent, and the increased supply of cotton caused by the cessation of the American War of Independence.

A weaving shed needed the correct light and humidity and a floor that was stable enough to withstand the vibration caused by the picking of many looms.

Quarry Bank Mill is of national significance in that it used two-storey side-lit buildings rather the a single storey sheds with a saw-tooth roof.

[43] It is believed it was a suspension wheel, 8 metres (26 ft) in diameter made from iron to the design of Thomas Hewes.

It was achieved by sinking the wheel pit to below the level of the river and taking the tail race through a tunnel a kilometre downstream to rejoin the Bollin at Giant's Castle.

[44] In 1905 two water turbines built by Gilbert Gilkes and Company were installed to replace the Great Wheel.

[48][49] A research document states that "although [Samuel] Greg did not rely on Caribbean estate earnings to finance entry into cotton spinning, his interest in plantations formed part of a wider family engagement in commerce that included significant slave-related business".

[51] The research document also confirms that Samuel Greg's brothers were owners of estates, in the West Indies, where labour was provided by slaves.

[59] Interiors of the work in the mill were filmed in Manchester because "the real factory floor couldn’t be easily converted from its contemporary function as a museum".