Good afternoon everybody and welcome to Riverside Industrial Village.
To start your visit, I'm just going to give you a brief account of the history of the museum before letting you roam about on your own. I won't keep you long. OK?
Now, from where we're standing you've got a good view of the river over there.
And it was because of this fast-flowing water that this site was a natural place for manufacturing works.
The water and the availability of raw materials in the area, like minerals and iron ore, and also the abundance of local fuels，
like coal and firewood, all made this site suitable for industry from a very early time.
Water was the main source of power for the early industries and some of the water wheels were first established in the 12th century,
would you believe? At that time, local craftsmen first built an iron forge just behind the village here, on the bend of the river.
By the 17th and 18th centuries the region's rivers supported more than a hundred and sixty water mills—and many of these continued to operate well into the 19th century.
But then the steam engine was invented and then the railways came and the centers of industry were able to move away from the rivers and the countryside and into the towns.
So, industrial villages like this one became very rare.