It’s all Arkwright
How many UNESCO World Heritage Sites are there in the UK?
It seems that there are 20 in England (the City of Bath seems to count as two sites), 6 in Scotland, 7 in Wales, and 2 in Northern Ireland. This might seem like a small number, suggesting that UK heritage isn’t of much value on a global stage. To become a World Heritage Site, however, one must apply/be nominated and the process isn’t a walk in the park - it makes an application for funding to the UK National Lottery funds look like a teddy bear’s picnic in comparison.
“To be included on the World Heritage List, sites must be of outstanding universal value and meet at least one out of ten selection criteria.” (https://whc.unesco.org/en/criteria/). These criteria include both cultural and natural aspects. Examples include representing a masterpiece of human creative genius, bearing a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition, or containing superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance.
UK sites which have chosen to go through the process, and come out successful, include the Flow Country, and the Antonine Wall in Scotland, Moravian Church Settlements: Gracehill in Northern Ireland, The Jurassic Coast, Saltaire, and Maritime Greewich in England, and the Slate Landscape of North West Wales, and the Blaenavon Industrial Landscape, in Wales.
Imagine our surprise, therefore, when our explorations of the High, Dark and White aspects of the Peak District National Park (see previous two blogs) brought us up close and personnel with another of England’s World Heritage sites: the Derwent Valley Mills. Make it stand out
Regular readers will be aware that we have been exploring the history of Peak District terminology and were particularly puzzled by the term ‘High Peak’ which seemed to be applied, somewhat carelessly perhaps, to many very different parts of Derbyshire, both Dark and White. Having explored the Dark Peak in our previous blog we felt the need to go south and investigate High Peak Junction (in White Peak country) where the late 18th century Cromford Canal met the early 19th century Cromford and High Peak Railway. What innocents we were! We will tell our story in order of historical chronology, despite our actual foray jumping about the centuries in as confusing a way as the geography of the so called Derbyshire ‘High Peak’.
Let us introduce you to Richard Arkwright, the barber of Bolton. Arkwright was born in Preston in 1732, was taught to read a write by his cousin Ellen (school was too expensive) and apprenticed to a barber, later setting up his own business as a barber and wig maker in Bolton. Here he is said to have invented a waterproof dye (as you do) for gentlemen’s periwigs. By 1868 he was working with a clockmaker, and the combination of wigs and mechanics seems to have created the dream team to invent a new sort of spinning machine. “This machine, initially powered by horses … greatly reduced the cost of cotton-spinning, and would lead to major changes in the textile industry.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Arkwright).
Add improvements to Lewis Paul’s carding machine and a business partner (John Smalley), and a horse driven textile factory is set up in Nottingham. Add more capital via more business partners with a side helping of bitterly disputed patent proceedings and by 1771, Arkwright is building a mega mill on the River Derwent in Cromford, Derbyshire. He went on to establish many other mills in Derbyshire and Lancashire and was also involved in New Lanark mills on the Clyde to the south east of Glasgow.
At Cromford, the powerful, imposing and rather forbidding mill buildings surround a courtyard which, today, is a somewhat bleak setting for the visitor oriented craft and book shops, and its elderly and hard-to-read interpretation panels. In its heyday both mills and yard must have been noisy, frantic, forbidding and perhaps terrifying spaces for those who worked there.
On Arkwright’s heels came other entrepreneurs, eager to exploit the energy potential of the Derwent. Manufacturing spread along the valley, from Matlock to the north, through Cromford, and on to Belper, Milford, Darley Abbey and Derby. Things were never the same again – until textile production moved to major cities. “Derwent Valley slowed leaving the area ‘suspended in time’. The landscape remains much as it did in the 1800s with the mills, waterways, housing and canals inserted into a rural landscape of farmland and woodland.” (https://unesco.org.uk/our-sites/world-heritage-sites/derwent-valley-mills)
Considering the level of production emanating from the Derwent valley in its prime, however, it was not surprising that an alternative form of transport was required to augment and replace the horse and cart. By 1779, the Erewash Canal was connecting southern Derbyshire to the River Trent, south west of Nottingham. By 1794, the Cromford canal had been constructed to link the Derwent valley mills, to the Erewash and Nottingham canals.
Terroir walked the final section of the Cromford canal from its terminus at Arkwright’s Mills to High Peak Junction, of which more in a minute. The canal is still technically navigable here although the only craft we saw was the tourist boat and a collection of young paddle boarders. Terroir walked the final section of the Cromford canal from its terminus at Arkwright’s Mills to High Peak Junction of which more in a minute. The canal is still technically navigable here although the only craft we saw was the tourist boat and a collection of young paddle boarders. The tow path is provides an accessible terrain which makes an attractive canal side walk for all ages and abilities. Cyclists are politely asked to give way to pedestrians.
The tow path (canal bank one side and a drop to woodland on the other) also provides a clear indication what we are in the White Peak not the Dark. Damp and limestone tolerant plants were everywhere.
And finally to High Peak Junction and the introduction of a 19th century transport revolution which would kill the canals. This was, of course, the railways - meeting the needs of the industrial revolution in a way that horses – or even Arkwright’s use of water – never could. The Cromford and High Peak Railway (CHPR) was opened in 1831, less than 40 years after the Cromford Canal’s construction, and only 6 years after the Stockton and Darlington Railway first used steam locomotives to haul coal wagons from collieries around Shildon. Lucrative freight haulage was key and passenger trains were still horse drawn for another couple of years until, in 1833, someone thought to design a people carrier that could be drawn by a steam engine.