Derwent Valley (Milford to the Derwent Hotel)

My personal challenge for this round of Miss Jenny Matlock's alphabe-Thursday is to post about a location within the borders of my own county of Derbyshire, UK, for each letter of the alphabet.


Each time, the letter will mark the spot.

D is for the Derwent Valley (Milford to the Derwent Hotel)

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In total, the River Derwent is 50 miles long, rising on Axe Edge (up north) and flowing into the Trent south east of Derby. For the purpose of this post, I am concentrating on a 7 mile stretch between the village of Milford, just north of Duffield and the Derwent Hotel at Whatstandwell. I'm taking you in my direction of travel and showing you just a snippet of what this route has to offer.

This is part of the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site, which was at the heart of the industrial revolution during the 18th Century, when new technologies first made cotton and silk cloth manufacture possible on an industrial scale..

Milford was named for its river crossing; part of an ancient route between Derby and the Peak District. From medieval times, there has been industry here; a corn mill, dying and fulling mills and iron forges. In 1781, that industry became rather larger scale when Jedediah Strutt bought land by the river to set up a cotton mill. Eventually, this mill contained sections for spinning, bleaching and dying, as well as foundries, a gas works and a corn mill. In the process, Strutt also built worker housing, a school and farms to supply food for his workers.

This view of the river is taken from the double arched bridge also built by him (but widened in 1906 to accommodate the increase in traffic!). Now, the bridge contends with a high volume of modern traffic, as the main A6 runs over it, through the centre of the village.

Moving north...

Before he purchased his land in Milford, Strutt had already established a cotton mill in Belper. His original mill was built in 1776, but destroyed by fire in 1803. Its replacement was built in 1804, by his son, William and its iron framed construction was designed to be fire proof; one of the oldest surviving buildings of this design in the world. The mill also had warm air central heating throughout and housed a school room in the roof space (floor 6).

In process order, the mill contained carding engines and drawing frames (to comb and straighten the cotton into fibres - floors 3&4), spinning frames (twisting the fibres into thread on bobbins - floors 1&2) and reeling frames (to wind the thread into skeins ready for dying at Milford - floor 5).

     

The mill was powered by an eighteen foot diameter water wheel, built for him by Thomas Hughes. The power generated by the river drove the wheel, which in turn drove rotating vertical shafts, geared to horizontal shafts which ran the length of each floor and powered the machinery via leather belts.

The Derwent Valley Heritage Site visitor centre is housed in Strutts Mill and gives details of all of the other mills and historic sites of interest along the river.

Good lines of communication have always been important for industry. The valley is a natural routeway and remains so today, with the main North and North East mainline railway running along here...

...and the main A6 road (which currently runs between Luton in Bedfordshire and Carlisle in Cumbria - on the border with Scotland).

Moving north a few more miles is the Derwent hotel, on the corner of the A6 by another bridge. It's been good for food for quite some time, but was recently refurbished meaning that the surroundings in which the food is eaten are much lighter and smarter looking now!

and looking north (upstream) from here, it is possible to see how the valley deepens and narrows, leading towards the gorge near Cromford and Matlock Bath.

Although there is still industry along the river today, it is difficult to look at these scenes and imagine that the modern factory system basically started here!