Dyevolution: Sunny Bank Mills Unlocks Historic Dye Secrets

In 2019, during regeneration works at Sunny Bank Mills in Leeds, six dye ledgers surfaced from the building's past. Dating from 1888 to 1908, these books are filled with hand-dyed wool samples and handwritten formulations, documenting a period when the textile industry underwent one of its most consequential shifts: the move from natural to early synthetic dyes.

That moment of change is now the foundation for Dyevolution, a three-year project funded by £243,000 from the National Lottery Heritage Fund. The project treats these fragile pages as both historical artefact and active research tool, using them to ask questions about colour that feel just as urgent now as they did over a century ago.

Inside one of the recovered dye ledgers, found during regeneration works at Sunny Bank Mills. Photo: Guzelian/ Lorne Campbell

Flip through a dye ledger from this era and you're looking at the working notes of people grappling with new materials in real time. Synthetic dyes promised brighter colours, faster production and new commercial possibilities, but they also demanded that dyers relearn their craft almost from scratch. The ledgers capture that experimentation: the adjustments, the trial runs, the small adaptations that added up to a transformed industry. Dyevolution will study these records closely, examining how the shift affected colour range, durability and efficiency—questions about how craft knowledge gets built, tested and passed on...

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Image Credits:

Lead: Inside one of the recovered dye ledgers, found during regeneration works at Sunny Bank Mills. Photo: Guzelian/ Lorne Campbell and courtesy of Sunny Bank Mills.

All further images as credited in captions.