Derwent Valley Mills facts for kids
| UNESCO World Heritage Site | |
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Masson Mills, Derwent Valley
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| Location | Derbyshire, England |
| Criteria | Cultural: ii, iv |
| Inscription | 2001 (25th Session) |
| Area | 1,228.7 ha |
| Buffer zone | 4,362.7002 ha |
The Derwent Valley Mills is a special place in Derbyshire, England. It's a World Heritage Site because it's where the modern factory system began. This happened in the 1700s, thanks to new ways of spinning cotton.
A man named Richard Arkwright invented machines that used water power to spin cotton all the time. This meant cotton could be made much faster. His ideas spread quickly. Soon, over 200 factories like his were built in Britain. Arkwright's inventions and his way of organizing workers were even used in Europe and the United States.
Before Arkwright, John Lombe used water power for silk in 1719. But Arkwright made it work for cotton in the 1770s. His "water frame" machine let unskilled workers make cotton continuously.
Arkwright's first factory was Cromford Mill. He also built homes for his workers nearby. This idea of building homes and communities around factories was copied all over the valley. These new settlements often had schools, churches, and markets. Many of these old homes are still used today. A transport system was also built to help sell the factory goods.
Other factory owners, like Arkwright's rivals, built mills and worker homes in places like Belper, Darley Abbey, and Milford. The cotton industry in the Derwent Valley slowed down in the early 1800s. This was because other areas, like Lancashire, were better for getting raw materials and reaching markets.
Even though the cotton industry changed, many of the old factory buildings are still here. They have been used for other things over the years. Many are now listed buildings or Scheduled Monuments. Some even have museums you can visit!
The Derwent Valley Trust is now working on a cycle path along the whole site. This helps people visit and enjoy the area in a green way.
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What is the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site?
The Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site covers about 12.3 square kilometers. It stretches for 24 kilometers along the River Derwent in Derbyshire. It goes from Matlock Bath in the north to Derby city centre in the south.
Inside this site, you'll find old factory buildings, worker homes, and weirs (dams) on the river. There's also the old transport network that helped the factories. The site includes the towns of Cromford, Belper, Milford, and Darley Abbey.
There are 838 listed buildings here. These are a mix of factories, homes, and other buildings connected to the factory communities. The Cromford Canal and Cromford and High Peak Railway are also part of the site. They were very important for moving goods and helping the area grow.
How did the Derwent Valley Mills begin?
In the late 1600s, silk became very popular. People wanted to make more of it using water power. Thomas Cotchett hired an engineer, George Sorocold, to build a mill in Derby. It didn't work well, but it gave John Lombe an idea.
Lombe, who worked for Cotchett, traveled to Italy to learn how their machines worked. He secretly brought back the designs. In 1719, he patented his design and built a five-story silk mill. By 1763, only a few of Lombe's mills had been built. This was because the silk market was small. But Lombe had shown how water-powered machines and organized workers could be used.
Silk was a luxury, so not many people bought it. The next big step was in the cotton industry, which made cheaper goods for more people. Spinning cotton was harder than silk.
Richard Arkwright invented the "water frame" for spinning cotton in 1769. These machines could spin yarn all the time. They replaced skilled workers with supervisors who just made sure the machines ran smoothly. Water frames came in different sizes. They became very popular.
In 1771, Arkwright leased land in Cromford. His first mill was running by 1774. He built a second mill in 1776. He also invented machines for preparing the cotton before spinning. With spinning machines, other parts of making cotton also needed machines. He made a machine for carding, which lines up cotton fibers.
Arkwright got money from Peter Nightingale, a local landowner. Nightingale helped him buy the Cromford Estate and build the second mill and worker homes. Between 1777 and 1783, Arkwright and his family built more mills in different areas.
Jedediah Strutt, who was Arkwright's partner, built mills in Belper and Milford. Thomas Evans, another landowner, built a cotton mill in Darley Abbey in 1782. Some people copied Arkwright's machines without paying him, even though it was against the law.
Arkwright started building Masson Mill in Matlock Bath in 1783. Jedediah Strutt also expanded his cotton spinning business. Strutt used Arkwright's proven machine designs. He built a mill in Belper around 1781, and added a second one in 1784. Strutt also built a mill in Milford. By 1793, they added more mills for printing and bleaching cotton.
How did the factory system change communities?
Richard Arkwright cared about his workers and their families. He built a Sunday School in Cromford in 1785, where 200 children learned. By 1789, the Arkwright family owned the Cromford Estate again. They helped shape the village.
Cromford got a market place to be a new center for the village. Arkwright held a market every Sunday. He even gave prizes to people who came most often. After Arkwright died in 1792, his son, Richard Arkwright junior, took over. He sold most of the family's cotton mills outside Cromford and Matlock Bath.
The Arkwright family also built Cromford Church in 1797. The village of Cromford grew until about 1840, even as the mills started to slow down.
Richard Arkwright junior wasn't as interested in the cotton business. The Arkwright family stopped investing in it. But the Strutt family kept investing. They built more mills into the 1810s. By 1833, their business employed 2,000 people. They became the biggest cotton producers in the Derwent Valley.
Like Arkwright, the Strutts built homes for their workers. Belper was already a village, so Strutt didn't have to build a whole new community like Arkwright did in Cromford. The Strutts also provided education. In 1817, 650 children in Belper and 300 in Milford went to Sunday Schools.
Belper's population grew a lot, from 4,500 in 1801 to 7,890 in 1831. Darley Abbey also grew as a worker settlement. Its population doubled between 1788 and 1801. It grew from 615 to 1,170 people between 1801 and 1831. A Sunday School was set up in one of the mills. A church and school were built in 1819 and 1826.
Even though the Strutts were big in the cotton industry, they started to lose to factories in Lancashire. Lancashire was better located for raw materials and new markets. The Strutts' mills also didn't modernize enough. They kept using child labor even as machines got bigger and needed adults. The company declined. In the late 1800s, some of their mills were sold.
Even though the cotton industry in the Derwent Valley declined, many of the old factory buildings and worker homes are still here. There are 848 listed buildings in the World Heritage Site.
How did transport help the mills?
Cromford Canal
The Erewash Canal was started in 1777 to move coal. In 1788, Richard Arkwright asked William Jessop to figure out how much it would cost to build a canal to connect his mills in Cromford to Langley Mill. It was estimated to cost £42,000, and the money was raised quickly.
Other mill owners, like Jedediah Strutt, were against the canal. They worried it would take water from their mills. But in 1789, Parliament said yes to building the canal.
The Cromford Canal opened in 1794. It cost almost twice the original estimate. It had two aqueducts, a 3,000-yard tunnel, and fourteen locks. Most of the cargo was coal and coke. Other goods included stone, iron ore, and lead.
Later, the Derby and Nottingham Canals were finished in 1796. They gave direct routes to important textile cities like Derby and Nottingham. The canal was successful until the mid-1800s. Then, a railway line was built nearby. In 1852, the canal was sold to the railway company, which led to its decline. It closed in 1944 because it was too expensive to fix. Derbyshire County Council bought the canal in 1974, and a group called the Cromford Canal Society is working to restore it.
Cromford and High Peak Railway
In the early 1800s, people wanted to build a canal to connect the Peak Forest Canal with the Cromford Canal. This would create a direct route between factories in Lancashire and Derbyshire. But it was too expensive.
Josias Jessop, William Jessop's son, thought a railway would be much cheaper. On May 2, 1825, a law was passed to build a railway from Cromford to Whaley Bridge. This was a big plan. They hoped to use steam locomotives, even though the technology was very new.
The southern part of the railway opened on May 29, 1830. The rest of the line opened on July 6, 1831. The first steam locomotive was used in 1841. Before that, only wagons were used.
The railway went from 277 feet above sea level at Cromford to 1,264 feet at Ladmanlow. Then it went down to 747 feet. These height changes would have needed many locks for a canal, but were easier for a railway. For a while, this railway had the sharpest curve and steepest incline in Britain for non-steam vehicles.
The railway cost £180,000 to build. This was more than planned, but much less than the £500,000 a canal would have cost. The railway's success depended on the canals. But by the time it opened, traffic on the Cromford Canal had already gone down. In 1855, a law allowed the railway to carry passengers too. Even so, it declined and closed on April 21, 1967.
What is the legacy of the Derwent Valley Mills?
The Derwent Valley is known as the birthplace of the factory system. Machines like the water frame allowed continuous production. Richard Arkwright's Cromford Mill and its worker settlement became a model for industrial communities everywhere. Homes were built for workers because it was the only way to get enough people to work in the mills.
Other factory owners like Peter Nightingale, Jedediah Strutt, and Thomas Evans copied Arkwright. They built worker settlements in Belper, Milford, and Darley Abbey. These factory owners cared about their employees and families.
Arkwright's inventions were very successful. Other factory owners copied his designs, even risking legal trouble. After his patents expired in 1785, over 200 Arkwright-style mills were built in Britain by 1788.
New Lanark in Scotland, another World Heritage Site, was directly influenced by the Derwent Valley. Its mills were similar to Arkwright's Masson Mill and used technology from the Derwent Valley. Robert Owen later took over New Lanark. He focused even more on worker welfare, education, and social control. Saltaire, another World Heritage Site, was founded in 1853. It also featured worker housing and facilities, based on Arkwright's factory system.
In 1774, the British government made it illegal to export "tools or utensils" used in the cotton industry. So, new technologies spread to other countries through industrial espionage (spying). Carl Delius worked in England and gave plans for Arkwright's inventions to Johann Gottfried Brugelmann. Brugelmann used this information to build a mill in Ratingen, Germany, in 1784. He even named the worker settlement "Cromford." This was the first Arkwright mill in mainland Europe.
The cotton spinning techniques from the Derwent Valley also spread to America. In 1790, the United States had very few machine spindles compared to Britain. Samuel Slater, who was from the Derwent Valley and trained with Jedediah Strutt, brought the Arkwright mill idea to America. He founded Slater Mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
Many technologies from the Derwent Valley Mills lasted a long time. For example, machines for carding cotton were still used until the mid-1900s. The factory system made it possible to produce cheap textiles and clothing for everyone.
How are the Derwent Valley Mills preserved today?
In 1971, the Arkwright Festival led to the creation of The Arkwright Society. This group bought the Cromford Mill complex in 1979. This saved the buildings from being torn down. The charity wanted to protect and restore the site.
The mills had been polluted by dyes and paints stored there after cotton production stopped. With help from local councils and other groups, the mills were cleaned and restored. This cost £5 million. Now, Cromford Mill is used by small businesses and for education.
Many of the mills built in the Derwent Valley still exist. They were reused after the cotton industry declined. Most of the worker homes are also still standing and are used as homes today. In the 1970s and 1980s, local groups worked to prevent the houses and mills from falling apart. They gave advice to owners and offered grants for repairs.
In 2000, the Derwent Valley Mills were nominated to become a World Heritage Site. This was to help show the importance of industrial archaeology (the study of old industrial sites). The nomination was successful, and in 2001, the Derwent Valley Mills became a World Heritage Site. This status helps protect the site because it's considered "outstanding value to humanity."
The site was chosen for its cultural importance. The Derwent Valley Mills pioneered worker housing and new technology. It created an industrial landscape and led to the growth of industrial towns. The Derwent Valley Mills Partnership manages the site for the British government. In 2009, Bath Street Mill in Derby, part of the site, was damaged by fire.
In 2018, the "Cromford Mills Creative Cluster and World Heritage Site Gateway Project" was a finalist for an award. By 2019, the Arkwright Society employed 100 people at Cromford Mills. They had spent £48 million on restoration by then.
Museums to visit
- Richard Arkwright's Masson Mill is now a working textile museum. It has the world's largest collection of bobbins.
- Leawood Pumphouse is a working museum. It still pumps water from the Derwent to Cromford Canal on certain weekends.
- At Belper, the Belper North Mill building houses the Derwent Valley Visitor Centre. It shows machines and other items from the valley's textile history.
- At the very south end of the site, Lombe's Silk Mill now has the Derby Industrial Museum. This museum was closed for a while but reopened in 2013.
- The Derby Industrial Museum was renamed the Museum of Making in November 2021. It has exhibits about the history of the Derwent Valley Mills and manufacturing.
See also
