Before I start on this week’s post, I celebrated a blogging milestone last month. I had my first month with over 5,000 unique visitors. I know it’s not a lot and for many bloggers this wouldn’t even register, but it was a big achievement for me to think 5,000 people had come to check out the blog in January and that I may have helped them plan a holiday here or there!

Anyway, back to the post at hand. I’m finally concluding my England autumn/winter 2022 series is a visit to Cromford Mills, in the Peak District. I visited whilst staying near Matlock back in October and was really blown away with what the area had to offer.

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The History

Cromford Mills are designated a UNESCO World Heritage site, and are often labelled as ‘the birthplace of the modern factory system’. It is special because it was the world’s first water-powered cotton spinning mill, developed by Richard Arkwright in 1771. Anyone who has studied the Industrial Revolution will know his name as he is one of the most famous pioneers of the era.

Today at the mill you can visit the Arkwright exhibition to learn more about the history of both the mill and the man. To look at the history I had to really put different lenses on what I was reading because emotionally it’s so complicated.

On the one hand, Arkwright was without doubt a self made man – coming from humble roots to develop something that ultimately lead to a huge increase in our standard of living. He started with 200 workers at the mill, which created so many jobs that the locality couldn’t staff them – so he was one of the first manufacturers to build houses, and also later educational facilities nearby. This contributed greatly to the local economy and continued throughout the 17 and 1800s.

That said, working here would today be classed as slavery. Starting from 1772, he ran the mills day and night with two twelve-hour shifts. Most of the employees were women and children, with the youngest only 7 years old. The minimum age was later raised to 10, and the children were given 6 hours of education a week. Today that is of course horrific, but to children of the time the money and education was sadly more than most received and establishments like this helped raise the living standard in this country so that future generations of children and adults alike could live a much better life.

The other difficult historical aspect is that the cotton processed here came from slave plantations overseas – mainly in India and then later the Americas. This mill helped fuel slavery because without it it wouldn’t have had anything to mill. Again Arkwright, and this country more widely, benefited from the appalling treatment of slaves across the globe.

Without mills like this and the Industrial Revolution, England wouldn’t be the country it is today. We wouldn’t have the standard of living we do, the relative wealth we do, the economy we do (although we’re doing a great job of trying to destroy that!) and the infrastructure we do. However, it is built on wealth derived directly and indirectly from slavery and horrific working conditions across the globe, plus has driven population booms and untold damage to this planet and the environment.

In short the exhibition was great, and really made me think.

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Visiting Today

Today the mills have been preserved and converted in to a series of shops, cafes, exhibitions and attractions.

The little shops were all beautiful, and so full of treats I bought quite a lot. I came home laden with locally made cheese, some lemon curd, some Italian olives, a new hair scrunchie and some Christmas gifts too. It was really nice to be able to support small local businesses as well.

After exploring the mill complex itself, there are also some lovely walks around to do. Highlights include walking up to the nearby church and then strolling along the river, taking in the sculpture trail as you do.

It’s also nice to pop over to Cromford village, where you could have a look in the shops, or enjoy a nice pub lunch if you wanted.

You can then also cross the road opposite the car park to walk along the canal and visit the café and shops located there too. There is even another Mill building which is home to the old equipment.

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What do you think of Cromford Mill? We had a lovely visit and I thought the site had been preserved beautifully as a perfect balance of history and modernity combined. Hope you enjoyed the tour – stay safe and happy travelling.