Back in time for pit stop

The Carding Shed is a vintagethemed experience housed in a Pennine mill. Paul Kirkwood enjoyed a trip down memory lane. Pictures by James Hardisty.

Dining at the Carding Shed is lunch as theatre. You’re served to the sound of 1960s pop classics by waitresses wearing polkadotted dresses and cardigans tied at the waist. You half-expect them to burst into song and find yourself in a flash mob. Tables are set beneath motoring ephemera including lamps, oil cans, a Penny Farthing and Chopper bike, all hung by wires from the ceiling while old steering wheels, US number plates and radiator grills, and enamel Shell and Firestone signs adorn the walls. Other signs, hinting at the mill’s past, refer to “Angora waste only” and the winding, twisting and spinning offices. A Mini Mayfair is parked in front of the specials board. It’s an extraordinary scene in the most unlikely setting in a 200-year-old woollen mill hidden in the concertina folds of the Holme Valley.

The adjacent classic car workshop and showroom is equally striking. Vehicles under restoration or for sale routinely include Mercedes, McLarens,

Rolls Royces, Ferraris, Porsches and Aston Martins from throughout the 20th century. Pride of place currently goes to an Armstrong Siddeley saloon car from 1939 while the most valuable vehicle to gleam under the mill skylights has been a Ferrari 250 GTO replica.

“We started a snowball rolling at the top of a mountain and it just got bigger and we can’t stop it.” That’s how Ian Kellett, who founded the Carding Shed, near Holmfirth, sums up the development of this unusual two-sided business consisting of IK Sport Classic and the Oil Can Cafe.