THEY were built during Queen Victoria’s reign, somehow avoided their metal parts being removed to help the war effort, survived a flood and – the biggest threat of all - the arrival of modern technology.

Once in full flight, their hundreds of intricate handmade moving pieces rattle and clatter, the old looms shudder and shake as they hungrily consume yard after yard of freshly spun yarn.

Over countless years the mill at Knockando near Aberlour helped provide fabric to keep its Speyside community warm and blankets to the War Office for troops on the Western Front during the First World War.

And down the years its two vintage Dobcross looms kept going until they became among the oldest of their kind – the original parts worn with age yet still able to create the most tactile, comforting and colourful of fabrics.

Now the 120-year-old looms, two metres high and a hefty 2.5 tons apiece, are being lovingly coaxed back into full service to play a key role in helping new generations understand the vital part weaving played in rural Highland life and Scotland’s wider textile industry.

According to Daniel Harris, the London-based weaver lured away from creating cloth for the likes of Ralph Lauren, Ally Capellino and Hardy Amis to work on the looms, they are simply unique.

“I haven’t seen any Dobcross looms this complete, that are still running on a flatbed overhead loom shaft,” he says.

“Even ones of a similar age would have been updated over the years, but these looms are 120 years old and are pretty much as they were when they were made. They’ve been incredibly well looked after.”

One dates from 1896, a little less lively than its 1899 date-stamped cousin which he recently cajoled into producing a length of fabric. A little ‘wonky’ in places, it served to highlight which parts of the creaking loom required particular care and attention.

He has since carefully taken it apart, inspected its inner workings and replaced some, using parts from the mill’s enormous collection of spares or new pieces crafted locally by a sympathetic engineering firm keen to help in the rebirth of Victorian ingenuity.

Discovering the mill’s collection of spare parts was almost as much of a thrill for Harris as setting eyes on the two looms: “When you have a mill on the same site for hundreds of years, it tends to collect stuff. And mill people can be terrible hoarders,” he says. “There might be a couple of tons of spare parts here.”

They will come in handy when attention turns to the 1896 loom, some parts of which been worn worryingly thin from years of use.

While it remains in bits, it’s hoped that the slightly younger of the two Knockando looms will be installed in a new part of the mill specially created to showcase it in all its working glory within weeks.

The loom’s rejuvenation will complete the circle for a community-driven project which has saved the Knockando woollen mill from being lost forever and led to a working heritage site where luxurious fabrics are being made for a growing market of consumers seeking cloth with centuries of history sewn in.

It also creates a link back to the mill’s origins in 1784 when a Speyside couple, William and Ann Grant, were listed as “fulling” wool from local sheep at Knockando Waulk Mill.

By 1865, the mill was in the hands of the Smith family, introduced a water wheel, carding machinery and a spinning mule to give Knockando all it needed to produce its fabric.

The mill and its looms survived against the odds, mostly thanks to its location tucked down a single track road in the heart of the Spey Valley.

“During the war when people were taking down railings to make Spitfires, all this metal was too far away, no-one really knew where it was and it survived,” says Harris, a self-taught weaver who opened London’s first ‘micro-mill’ in 2011 and who has become an expert on vintage looms.

“At one point there was a flood and the weaving shed was washed away. It wasn’t enough to stop work though. They just set up the looms outside and carried on.”

The cottage-style format of the weaving industry helped protect the mill and its looms from modernisation and replacement, he adds.

“The Scottish and Welsh weaving industry was built around little mills in often isolated locations. They run two or three looms in a mill compared to the big mills which might have had 300. So, these two or three individual looms were incredibly important to the local communities.”

The mill changed hands in 1979 when a passing visitor from London, Hugh Jones, saw the site and fell in love with the notion of weaving his own fabric.

Just 23-years-old at the time, he took over from the remaining Stewart family member to keep the mill alive when others fell into ruin.

His decision to step back from running the mill sparked a local campaign to save it led by the Knockando Woolmill Trust. It raised £3.2m mostly from Historic Environment Scotland, the National Lottery and charitable trusts, which restored crumbling buildings, the water wheel and equipment, and created a new, contemporary weaving hub with more modern looms.

However, it is the rebirth of the Dobcross looms which is at the heart of the mill project.

“There is no point having a mill unless the machines are working,” says Lady Nicola Irwin, Chairperson of the Trust.

“Watching the looms at work is extraordinary. These are special machines that we want to keep alive. These are what people who visit a mill want to see.

“The mill isn’t just important here in the northeast of Scotland,” she adds. “It is an important part of the weaving history of the world.

“It enables today’s textile designers to see this method of production, the washed wool, carding, spinning and the loom.

The rebuilt 1899 Dobcross loom is expected to be in its new location at the mill in September, Harris on hand to explain to visitors its significance.

“Seeing these looms running and also seeing them alongside new looms so important,” he adds.

“So many people have lost touch with where clothes come from. They don’t understand the volume of work that goes into it. You can read a book on it but never understand it.

“It’s when you see it, you appreciate what’s involved.

“Here people will see the entire process, from what wool looks like it when it just came off a sheep through to things being woven.

“That’s pretty incredible.”