Transport, Power and Public Utilities – Strategic Objectives

The Derwent Valley developed as an important transport artery during the Industrial Revolution, linking the industrial towns of the Midlands with Manchester and the north-west. This spurred a fundamental reorientation of established patterns of movement, immortalised in the writings of 17th and 18th century travellers such as Celia Fiennes and Daniel Defoe.¹ The new canals,² railways³ and roads⁴ of the 18th and 19th centuries mainly utilised the valley floor, overlying a hill-based network of principally east-west packhorse tracks and roads for wheeled vehicles.⁵ The Derwent’s role as a transport corridor developed in a relatively piecemeal and halting fashion, with the aim of facilitating the export of local lead, textiles, timber, stone and other products and the import of raw materials, particularly for the manufacture of cotton goods. These developments also made the area more accessible for travellers, stimulating a nascent tourist industry. Key events in the development of a more integrated transport network include the building of the Cromford Canal, opened in 1792-3,⁶ and, in the 19th century, the construction of the Cromford to Belper Turnpike, Cromford and High Peak Railway and Manchester, Buxton, Matlock and Midland Junction Railway.⁷

Studies of transport developments and their wider impacts should consider a broad range of issues, including the constraints of geology and topography, competition between transport companies and the ambitions of land and mill owners. From the landscape perspective, it would be interesting to investigate how the hill-based road network had to be modified to meet the needs of valley industry. From the economic viewpoint, it would be useful to establish the impact of transport costs upon industrial viability by comparison with other regions, the relationships between the commercial activities of industrialists and their investments in transport infrastructure, and how the developing infrastructure met the needs of industrialists. There is also a need to investigate the impacts of changing communications patterns and technologies upon established settlements with respect to their commercial and industrial viability, migration, mobility, accessibility and the development of tourism. Finally, it would be interesting to establish the extent to which transport improvements embedded communities within wider regional and national networks. In this last respect, factors spurring the growth of communication networks, including finance, entrepreneurial activity, technology, infrastructure, traffic and trade, are crucial to the forging of regional and national economies, social networks and community identities from the 18th century into the modern era.⁸

George Revill and Trevor Griffin

Fig.4.41 Field survey and documentary research by members of the Butterley Gangroad Project⁹ has shed important light upon the development of this early railway, built in the 1790s as a feeder line between limestone quarries at Crich and the Cromford Canal and closed in 1933. This 1930s postcard shows the mid-19th century Fritchley embankment (reproduced by courtesy of Derbys Archaeological Society)

References

¹ Hey, D 1980 Packmen, Carriers and Packhorse Roads. Leicester: LUP, 12–14

² Hadfield, C 1970 The Canals of the East Midlands. Newton Abbot: David & Charles

³ Williams, F S 1877 The Midland Railway: Its Rise and Progress. Derby: Bemrose

⁴ Pawelski, M 2015 ‘Turnpikes and local industry: A study of the relationship between the lead industry and the turnpike system in 18th century Derbyshire’ in Wrigley, C (ed) The Industrial Revolution. Cromford: Arkwright Society, 55–71; Radley, J and Penny, S R 1972 ‘The turnpike roads of the Peak District’. DAJ 92, 93–109

⁵ Dodd, A E and Dodd, E M 2000 Peakland Roads and Trackways, 3 edn. Ashbourne: Landmark

⁶ Potter, H and Riden, P (eds) 2015 Minutes of the Meetings of the Cromford Canal Company, 1789–1799. Chesterfield: Derbyshire Record Society, ix–xxxii

⁷ Cooper, B 1991 Transformation of a Valley. Cromford: Scarthin Books, 162–221

⁸ Laugero, G 1996 ‘Infrastructures of Enlightenment: Road-making, the public sphere, and the emergence of literature’. Eighteenth Century Studies 29, 45–67; Revill, G 2007 ‘William Jessop and the River Trent: Mobility, engineering and the landscape of eighteenth century improvement’. Transactions Institute of British Geographers 32, 201–16

⁹ Griffin, T et al 2014 ‘The Butterley Gangroad’. DAJ 134, 221–52; Griffin, T et al 2015 The Butterley Gangroad (or Crich Rail-way). Derby: DAS

Travel in the 18th century was challenging, especially when moving heavy goods such as stone, ore, coal and cotton.¹ The early mills were established close to river bridges, with water available for power, and packhorse routes already established.² For mass production to thrive in the Derwent Valley, as it developed into an industrial hub, the need for better transport links became a necessity. Rare contemporary accounts of travel through post-medieval Derbyshire emphasise the difficulties of road travel, which was time-consuming and often arduous. As noted by Celia Fiennes, for example, recounting the events of her Derbyshire tour of 1697: ‘All Derbyshire is full of steep hills…which makes travelling tedious, and the miles long’.³ The development of the factory system, which began with Derby’s Silk Mill and was expanded and refined by Sir Richard Arkwright and Jedediah Strutt at Cromford and Belper, spurred the development of better transport links. The opening in 1792-3 of the Cromford Canal,⁴ linking the Erewash Canal at Langley Mill to Cromford, began these improvements, but this was by no means sufficient. Better roads were needed, linking key industrial sites with the improving national network. From this perspective, the building with cotton-spinning profits of a turnpike running parallel to the River Derwent represented a crucial development for future economic growth in the Valley. The supporting infrastructure for this road, built after an Act of Parliament was passed in 1817, is not fully understood, and would merit further study.

Early examples of road-building survive within the Derwent Valley and, whilst some survey and excavation work has been conducted,⁵ a greater understanding of how and why they were constructed is needed. Due in large part to Derby’s central position within England, the coming of passenger-carrying railways from 1839 increased the town’s population dramatically and brought greater prosperity and opportunity for industrial expansion as a central hub for the national network.⁶ The establishment of high-quality road and rail links greatly impacted on the region’s industrial prosperity and, in the narrow valley between Ambergate and Cromford, resulted in an intertwined system of road, railway, river and canal routes reflecting the engineering constraints imposed by topography. How these improved links helped to expand industries within the valley is neither clearly understood nor well documented, and would merit further study. Recent proposals for Midland Main Line electrification have highlighted the historic and architectural importance of the significant stretch of Stephenson-built Midland Railway that runs through the World Heritage Site, as well as the need for greater understanding not only of its impact upon continuing textile production but also of how the line was established and constructed.⁷

 Adrian Farmer & Mary Smedley

Fig.4.42 View northwards along the turnpike linking Belper with Matlock in a postcard of 1880, showing the Ambergate tollgate (right) at the junction between the turnpike and the road to Ripley (A610). The embankment of the railway from Derby to Matlock may be seen to the north of the tollgate (source: Adrian Farmer collection)

References

¹ Palmer, M et al 2012 Industrial Archaeology: A Handbook. York: CBA, 233-66

² Hey, D 1980 Packmen, Carriers and Packhorse Roads: Trade and Communications in North Derbyshire and South Yorkshire. Leicester: LUP

³ Morris, C (ed) 1984 The Illustrated Journeys of Celia Fiennes, c.1682–1712. London: Macdonald, 96–7, 103; Hey, 1980, 31

⁴ Potter, H and Riden, P (eds) 2015 Minutes of the Meetings of the Cromford Canal Company, 1789–1799. Chesterfield: Derbyshire Record Society, ix–xxxii

⁵ Sheppard R et al 2006 ‘Archaeological survey of historic road surfaces at Long Row and the Clusters, Belper’. Nottingham: TPA (copy in Derbys HER)

⁶ Billson, P 1996 Derby and the Midland Railway. Derby: Breedon Books; Craven, M 2007 An Illustrated History of Derby. Derby: Breedon Books, 177–97

⁷ World Heritage Site News 14, 2014, 5-12; http://dvm.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/ 12/DVMWHS-Newsletter-2014-low-res.pdf

The Industrial Revolution generated a string of new communities along the Derwent, from Cromford in the north to Belper, Milford and Darley Abbey in the lower reaches of the Valley. All were ‘a deliberate creation’,¹ begun in the later 18th century by mill owners such as Sir Richard Arkwright at Cromford and Jedediah Strutt at Belper, ’without assistance from the State or local authority and with no public services’.² The houses that were provided for mill workers and their families represented a significant improvement on rural cottages in terms of their design and sometimes their architectural pretensions.³ In terms, however, of services such as piped water or effective sewage treatment, there was little to choose between the lives of residents in the new industrial settlements and those that endured the insanitary conditions of neighbouring villages⁴ and the growing industrial towns.⁵ In such circumstances, households were forced to rely for essential drinking water, cooking and washing services upon the streams that flowed into the Derwent, together with springs, standpipes and wells, with consequent risks to their general health and well-being.

Comparisons with the achievements of the mill owners’ successors in other regions of the country are instructive and raise questions about their priorities and motivations, as does the chronology of utility provision, The Ashworths of Bolton, for example, provided water for their workers’ houses in 1835, while the West Yorkshire model villages of Saltaire and Ackroyden followed suit in the 1850s and 1860s.⁶ By contrast, water and sewage provision for the industrial communities of the Derwent Valley lagged behind, despite the advantages demonstrated elsewhere of ensuring a healthy workforce through hygienic sanitary arrangements. Belper, for instance, acquired piped water only in the 1890s,⁷ while Cromford’s sewage provision remained inadequate well into the following century, with nightsoil collection from properties with outside toilets continuing into the 1960s.⁸ The installation of gas lighting was less protracted and was accomplished from a significantly earlier date. The Strutt family, for example, built a gas works at Milford Mills as early as 1822, enabling surplus gas to be utilised for lighting the streets,⁹ and a similar exercise was repeated in Belper.¹⁰ Street lighting may have had a philanthropic impetus, but its early introduction, well in advance of water and sewage provision, might have been a more pragmatic decision aimed at ensuring efficient use of surplus production.

Real improvements came only with the development of efficient local government, backed by empowering legislation, during the late 19th and 20th centuries, raising further interesting questions about the mill owners’ motivations. In this context, it would be useful to establish how far the activities of the factory owners extended into the public realm and how they interacted with the owners of private utility companies and with local authority officers.

Mark Suggitt

Fig. 4.43 Short Row, Belper: one of 47 red-brick terrace houses with slate roofs, built by the Strutts for mill workers around 1788. The development comprised four separate rows of mainly one-up, one-down cottages, all originally lacking piped water and other basic utilities (photograph © Mark Suggitt) 

References

^1,2 Fitton, R S and Wadsworth, A P 1958 The Strutts and the Arkwrights. Manchester: MUP, 98

³ Buxton, D and Charlton, C 2013 Cromford Revisited. Matlock: DVMWHS Educational Trust, 112–14

⁴ Compare Mullins, S and Glasson, M 1985 Hidden Harborough. Leicester: Leicestershire Museums, Arts Galleries and Records Service, 26–35

⁵ Compare Hunt, T 2004 Building Jerusalem: The Rise and Fall of the Victorian City. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 193–231

⁶ The English Terraced House. London: YUP, 56

⁷ Giles, J et al 1999 An Illustrated History of Belper and its Environs. Belper: Morris, 112

⁸ Buxton and Charlton 2013, 137–8

^9,10 Giles et al 1999, 113

The Derwent has served as an important power source for flour-milling and other industrial activities since at least the medieval period,¹ although its flow characteristics and hence potential power output would have fluctuated in response to climatic or land-use changes affecting levels of surface water discharge.² The potential for power generation has also changed in response to technological developments, notably in water wheel design and water turbine technology,³ and in recent years by the development of hydropower.⁴ The Derwent is currently characterised by a reliable, vigorous and abundant flow of water, and hence is ideal for hydropower. In consequence, several organisations in the region have begun to research and use this energy source,⁵ and there is a growing interest in exploring means by which the often conflicting interests of stakeholders can be reconciled.

Issues to be reconciled include meeting the needs of local settlements, for which the river provides both water and amenities, the maintenance of the authenticity and setting of the riverside historic assets that contribute to the Outstanding Universal Value of the World Heritage Site, enhancement of biodiversity, the fostering of industry, tourism and employment opportunities, mitigation of climate change impacts, enhancement of water quality and compliance with the regulatory framework for water abstraction and impoundment. Managers of the Site’s historic assets have already commenced work on these topics,⁶ along with local Transition Town groups⁷ and regionally based organisations such as the DerwentWISE Landscape Partnership⁸ and the Derwent Catchment Partnership.⁹ Work by these groups and by participants in multidisciplinary research initiatives such as the Future Works strand of the AHRC-funded Stories of Change project,¹⁰ points the way forward. Transition Belper members, for example, have set up Amber and Derwent Valley Community Energy (ADVyCE Ltd)¹¹ with the aims of enhancing understanding of the Valley’s hydropower potential and of developing community-owned hydropower stations. Such groups are well placed to bring people together to discuss these concerns and to develop governance models and strategies for the future negotiation of shared interests. This requires interdisciplinary working and careful facilitation, plus sustained effort to ensure effective communication and the sharing of resources.

Ian Jackson, Joe Smith, Renata Tyszczuk, Julia Udall and Nicola Whyte

Fig.4.44 One of two hydropower turbines operating at Belper’s East Mill, each with a capacity of 175kW. When in full flow, the power generated by both turbines is sufficient to provide 1,767,000 kWh per annum. Based upon current average rates of household energy use, this is enough to provide 535 houses with electrical power for a year (assuming 3,300kWh per annum for each house; photograph © Ian Jackson)

References

¹ Strategic Objective 2C

² Howard, A J and Knight, D 2015 Future Climate and Environmental Change within the DVMWHS. Report for Historic England: https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/future-climate-environmental-change-within-derwent-valley-mill-whs/

³ Reynolds, T S 1983. Stronger than a Hundred Men: A History of the Vertical Water Wheel. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press; Palmer, M et al 2012 Industrial Archaeology: A Handbook. York: CBA, 84–91

⁴ British Hydropower Association 2012 A Guide to UK Mini-hydro Developments. British Hydropower Association; http://www.british-hydro.org/Useful_ Information/A%20Guide%20to%20UK%20mini-hydro%20development%20v3.pdf

⁵ Eg Derwent Hydro: http://www.derwent-hydro.co.uk

⁶ http://www.derwentvalleymills.org/derwent-valley-mills-conservation/planning/

⁷ https://www.transitionnetwork.org

⁸ http://www.derwentwise.com

⁹ http://www.derbyshirewildlifetrust.org.uk/what-we-do/projects/derbyshire-derwent-catchment-partnership/partnership

¹⁰ https://storiesfutureworks.wordpress.com

¹¹ http://www.transitionbelper.org/advyce.html