Richard Arkwright – Still Sitting
Cromford’s other claim to fame is as the site of one of the first, or, by appropriate definition, THE first mass-production plant: Cromford (Cotton-spinning) Mill. Richard Arkwright chose this beautiful and wild place to harness water power and re-fashioned the valley in a way which largely survives to this day – only the associated hamlet of Scarthin largely disappeared in the demolition ’60s; I’m writing this among its Pompeii-like remains.The Arkwrights, like the nearby Strutts, Nightingales and Hurts, sold up their estates in the 1920s. The yeoman-like independence of local farmers, hauliers and other businessmen can perhaps be traced to this era. Cottages of two and three storeys in Cromford were sold to their tenants for sums like £75 or even £35 (multiply by 40 or so, for modern day prices). Much of the land surrounding the village was, however, bought by the Key family, owners of local colour-works, while the industrial buildings have since passed to the Arkwright Society. This landowning duopoly is a potent force for preservation of a sort. The grudging subservience that Cromford people once felt, perforce, towards the Arkwrights was transferred to the “Arkwrights” (the Arkwright Society),wrongly believed to be able to stop you doing ANYTHING here. As for the Mills, “the best thing you could do with them is blow them up!” POSTSCRIPT: I wrote the

above a decade ago; let it stand as a record of how things felt then. Now we are part of a WORLD HERITAGE SITE (scarcely merited until the lost Mills of Belper and Milford are rebuilt) and planning controls are even tighter, but a new generation, and a mellowed older generation(?) in the village are more positive and forward-looking. Each year we hold a CELEBRATING CROMFORD weekend!

Sir Richard Arkwright 1732-1792 from a painting by Joseph Wright of Derby c. 1790.

…so, it is the Council who can STOP you doing anything, but they lack the resources to START much- Unlike most English historic villages, Cromford is still a bit of a MESS – noisy and fumey, traffic-dominated, lots of bad-taste renovations. Much of the stone quarried in Derbyshire comes out through the village, a transport bottleneck at least since Roman times.That, to simplify a bit, is what SCARTHIN means, a “narrow gap between the rocks”. This bookshop can’t grumble – accessibilty allows us to live!

Arkwright’s Masson Mill

So, Cromford has been one of the last villages in or near the Peak to go “up-market”, but it has finally followed Middleton-by-Wirksworth into desirability…and, actually, WHAT a place to live! Where else boasts river, canal, road and rail; limestone and gritstone; meadow and moor; woods and cliffs – and services including chemist, butcher, baker, grocer,hardware shop, three pubs, a club, two garages, two hotel/conference centres – there are at least a dozen places where you can eat and a major table-tennis club! Just around the corner a later but grander Arkwright mill, Masson, is claimed by Matlock Bath parish, while Bonsall claims the Via Gellia Mills, just up the valley, the nameplace of “viyella” winter-warms and now a thriving hive of small craftsmen. Masson Mill clocked up 200 years of spinning before being sold and with the help of a big grant, and a multi-storey car park, has bee transformed into a ‘shopping mall, with a working museum that (as with all museums) not enough people visit.’.

For more information try: The Life of Richard Arkwright

Some Arkwright sources

  • Cromford Guide. (Bayles, Freda & Ede, Janet) 24cm.44. 27ill.3M. Paperback. Scarthin Books: Sep 94. 3.50 0 907758 76 2 (Whitaker UK)
  • Strutts and the Arkwrights, 1758-1830. (Fitton, R.S. & Wadsworth, A.P.) 22cm.xli,361. Ill.tabs.M. facsim. of 1958e. Cloth. Kelley: Dec 69. 26.00 (at 09/96) 0 678 06758 9 (Whitaker UK)
  • Samuel Oldknow and the Arkwrights: Industrial Revolution at Stockport and Marple. With Chapters by Arthur Hulme and George Taylor. (Unwin, G.) 22cm.xxii,259. Ill.M. facsim. of 1924e. Cloth. Kelley: Dec 69. 25.00 (at 09/96) 0 678 06767 8 (Whitaker UK)