Laxey, Isle of Man

Laxey Gill is a pleasing walk in dry weather, winding up the romantick river, whose tides are adorned by countless yards of bleaching cloth, and at intervals groups of females tread the cloth in the stream, and fit around cauldrons boiling the cloth with kelp; the cloth covers a great space, and is kept down on the surface by large pebbles; they bleach tolerably white, but for peculiar purposes they send it to Ireland to be bleached.' (John Feltham, A tour through the Island of Mann in 1797 and 1798, M 09791)