Styal village hub and the worker's cottage

Image of row of Oak Cottages in Styal village

In Styal village you can discover the domestic lives of the mill workers. The village hub houses a permanent exhibition about life in Styal, and a video about how we restored one of the cottages, which you can visit on a guided tour.

Styal village hub

Second part of the path to Styal village showing wooden gate

Styal Village Hub is about 400m from Visitor Reception. To get to the hub, you pass through two fields along level compacted gravel paths. The path goes through two latched field-gates, which unaided wheelchair users may find difficult to open.

Fifth part of the path to Styal village showing cobbled path also used be cars

In Styal village, the village hub is along a wide cobbled path approximately 50m long which includes speed bumps. This path is used by both pedestrians and cars, so please take care. Styal is a living community and we ask all visitors to be respectful of residents' privacy.

Visitors on a shuttle buggy — Our accessible wheelchair shuttle

Visitors can be taken to and from Styal Village by the buggy. However due to the cobbled paths in the village, the drop-off point is 100m from the village hub.

There is level access to the village hub. Inside the hub you can find out more about life in Styal village and the living conditions of the workers compared with those who lived in Manchester. There's also a subtitled video which explores how we restored the worker's cottage. If you're unable to access the cottage or are unable to get a place on a tour, the video will give you an insight into its story.

There is an accessible toilet in the village hub for the use of visitors. The transfer is left to right.

The worker's cottage

You'll need to book onto a timed tour to visit the worker's cottage. Due to its small size, there are only 8 places per tour so availability is very limited. Tours can be booked onto at the village hub. Visitor Reception are able to telephone the hub to check availability, please ask at Visitor Reception if this would be helpful for you.

Image of the row of Oak Cottages where the Worker's Cottage is, showing cobbled path and steps up into the cottage and down into the cellar

The main entrance to the worker's cottage is up four 20cm steps with handrails on both sides. There is no wheelchair access; however you can watch a video which shows the cottage interior and explores how we restored the cottage in the village hub. In the cottage the floors are either lino-covered or stone-flagged.

The staircase in the Worker's Cottage, which has steep stairs to the first floor

The first floor of the cottage is reached by a steep and twisting wooden staircase; the descent is by the same route. The tour also takes you into the cellar, which is down some stone stairs.