Amy Greg

Amy Greg was the daughter of Samuel Greg jnr. Samuel developed the mill at Lowerhouse and lived at Mount in Flash Lane. Amy lived with her parents and occupied part of her time with painting in watercolours. A collection of her work came to light and all of the almost 40 paintings were set on and around the Mount estate. This particular collection is known to have been painted in or around 1898. Many of the views are easily identifiable today and it is interesting to see the differences in the scenes.

One notable aspect of the pictures is that not one of them contains even the slightest indication of any industrialisation - pictures over Lowerhouse omit the mill; those over Bollington show no sign of the canal, railway or the mills. Clarence and Adelphi would have been clearly visible but there is nothing of them. There seems to me to be two possible reasons for this. Maybe she wished to express the romantic view of the world in which there was no place for the greater works of man.

Alternatively maybe this omission was a reflection of her father's attitude to his mill. In the mid 1840s he fell out with his workers and never set foot in the mill again. One can only imagine what might have been said behind the closed doors of the Mount!