One of two museums dedicated to the beret is the La Encartada Museoa in Balmaseda, Spain. The factory was established by Marcos Arena Bermejillo in 1892 and continued production until it's closure a century later, in 1992. The principal product has always been the Basque beret, supplied in large numbers to the police and military in Spain and abroad.
In 2007 the factory re-opened as a museum, displaying a range of machines for processing wool originating in many parts of Europe.
The raw wool was cleaned on a devil, made in Catalonia in 1956, carded and lapped on machines made by Platt Bross of Oldham in 1892 and spun into yarn on a 360-spindle self-acting mule build in 1892. Power was provided by a Francis-type turbine manufactured by J M Voith of Heidenheim, Germany, in 1904, which drove a dynamo made by Edison in Paris in 1892, transmitting power through line-shafting provided by the Manchester agents John M Sumner & Co in 1891-92. The knitting frames were Spanish made (Bilbao), fulling machines were British made and various Belgian machines were acquired over the years.
La Encartada displays a traditional Basque factory, but it also shows how entrepreneurs were able to integrate machines from many European countries into a single manufacturing process.
Nearby are several workers’ houses, some built at the same time as the factory and some from the early twentieth century.
On the web I found various links to the museum and it's (archaeological) history:
The museum's web site in English: http://www.laencartadamuseoa.com/eng/home.html
On the history and archaeology of the the (workers') buildings at the La Encartada premises: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvYLtuWnYlA&feature=related
Information on La Encartada and berets (in Spanish) with a video clip: http://www.enkarterri.info/fabrica-de-boinas-la-encartada-sa.html
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