Key Sites
Belper
Belper
is located half way between Cromford and Derby. The river Derwent and
the A6 trunk road, a former turnpike, run along the western edge of the
town. The Strutts’ mill complex and the greater part of the associated
housing is all to the north of the town centre, with the houses stretching
out in rows and terraces up the slopes of the hills to the north and
the east. Jedediah Strutt and after him, his sons, William, George Benson
and Joseph, developed the mills over a period of about 40 years between
1777 and 1815. Thanks to William Strutt’s innovatory talents as
an engineer the site included a range of structures. Taken together,
they charted the evolution of mill design from the traditional stone
and timber structures through to the first steps in fire protection and
onto the full use of iron and brick-arched fire-proofing. Few of these
buildings survived the clearance of the site c.1960.
The Strutt factory communities in Belper and Milford have survived almost without loss. The houses, the farms and public buildings, together with the documentary material which has been collected, represent a unique archive for the industrial and social historian. The survival of the Strutt housing has been underpinned by the quality of the buildings the Strutts commissioned. If the houses had been built to a low specification they would have been superseded a century ago, victims of the legislation to improve basic housing standards and of public demand for better quality housing. As it was, the Strutts retained their inheritance, repairing and improving their housing stock from time to time until the 1950s when the family began to dispose of its property and the houses gradually became owner occupied.
Belper North Mill
1804 - Listed Grade I
Belper
North Mill, rebuilt in 1804 by William Strutt on the lower storeys of
the earlier mill that had been destroyed by fire in 1803, embodies the
knowledge accumulated from all the earlier experiments William Strutt
had made into fire-resistant mill structures and from his close participation
in Charles Bage’s pioneering work at Shrewsbury. William Strutt,
1756-1830, was a mechanic and engineer of the highest distinction. He
was the first to tackle systematically the threat of fire in textile
mills first by cladding with plaster and then by the use of iron and
brick. His work with Charles Bage, who grew up in Darley Abbey and who
he may have known from an early age, was seminal in the evolution of
fire-proof design.
It
was Charles Bage who produced the first iron-framed mill at Shrewsbury
in 1796 and then went on to build a further mill in Leeds. William Strutt’s
Belper Mill embodied much of what Charles Bage had learnt and took further
the evolution of these structures from which there emerged, two generations
later, the first fully framed building, the Sheerness Boat Store.
The mill is constructed in brick on a stone plinth. The exterior retains the character of the earlier mill and so has the appearance of a first generation Arkwright-type structure. Every aspect of the building was designed to resist combustion. It has a T-shaped plan consisting of a main range of 17 bays and a wing of 6 bays. Housed within the wing is the wheel chamber that occupies the three bays adjacent to the main range.
The
wheel pit, which now stands empty, gives some indication of the power
once generated to operate this mill. The wheel installed in 1804 was
replaced in 1823 at a cost of £1,383; it was constantly repaired
as daily use took its toll. In the basement, the former ground floor
of the earlier mill, stone piers carry the cast iron columns which support
each of the floors above. The massive stone buttresses which were once
a feature of this space have been removed.
The floors are composed of brick and tile supported by arches that spring from cast iron beams. The beams are supported by cast iron columns which, in turn, are linked together by wrought iron ties. Clay pots are used to infill the floor arches in the bays above the water wheel so reducing the weight in this area.
Carl Friedrick Schinkel, arguably the greatest German architect of the 19th century and a member of the Prussian Public Works Committee, visited England in 1826. Schinkel described the Strutt works in Belper as “the best in England”. The sheer scale of iron-framed industrial buildings throughout the country impressed him and influenced many of his later designs, notably the Bauakademie, 1831-5 in Berlin. The mill has also attracted more recent attention. Sir Neil Cossons in 1981 described it as “the most beautiful, sophisticated and technically perfect structure of its era”.
William Strutt was recognised by his contemporaries as the leading exponent of hot-air heating systems for large buildings and the stove, which was once located in the windowless masonry block occupying the two northern bays of the western end of the North Mill, is of some interest, though it is now recognised that mill buildings of an earlier generation, as for example those at Cromford, had hot-air heating systems before William Strutt’s experiments began. The archaeology of the stove-housing and stoking area in the North Mill have been disturbed in modern times, which complicates the historic evaluation of this area of the structure. A stove which was part of a William Strutt heating system has survived and is now in the National Museum of Science and Industry in London.
The Belper East Mill
1912 - Listed Grade II
The
East Mill completely overshadows the North Mill. A fortress-like, seven-storey
building with four corner turrets, Italianate tower and rows of windows,
it was constructed by the English Sewing Cotton Company in 1912 in the
distinctive Accrington red-brick, which had by this time become the preferred
building material for textile mills - whether built in Lancashire or
elsewhere. It is built around a steel frame, which by 1912 had long been
entirely free-standing; unlike William Strutt’s structures, which
relied on the walls of the building to support them. Nevertheless, its
debt to the earlier innovations of Strutt and Bage is palpable.
Arched footbridge
c.1795 - Listed Grade II*
A sandstone bridge linking the two separate areas of the former Strutt Mills complex on either side of the Ashbourne Road. The archway also served a defensive role. Along its length are gun embrasures which protected the West Mill counting house.
The Horseshoe Weir
1797 Listed Grade II*
The
two first mills in Belper, the South Mill and the North Mill, were served
by the water retained by Jedediah Strutt’s first weir, a simple
structure which spanned the river near the present day railway bridge.
To power the West Mill, Strutt needed a new and very much larger weir. An outline of this structure appears on a plan of 1796, and building began soon after. As the name suggests, the weir is of distinctive shape. It was modified and increased in height in 1819 and 1843 yet remains largely unaltered. The weir and its associated watercourses altered the river significantly. By 1820, some 5.8 hectares of water had been added to the Derwent immediately above Bridge Foot. Rees’s Cyclopaedia, which was published serially between 1802 and 1820, described the mills at Belper as being “on a scale and most complete we have ever seen, in their dams and their water works”. It is one of the outstanding engineering structures of the late 18th century.
The Bridge, Milford Dyehouse, Derby Road
1832 - Listed Grade II
It
is said to have been built in 1832, two years after William Strutt’s
death and though he may not have supervised its construction it is clearly
a late development of his methods of fire-proofing. It is L-shaped, is
built of coursed stone and has a hipped slate roof. The interior is of
a vaulted construction with brick floors above. It has iron beams and
cast iron columns linked by wrought iron tie rods. The building is eight
bays long and two asymmetrical bays wide. The eastern facade has seven
pairs of iron-framed windows each with a centre casement. It has double
loading doors.
In a recess on the south wall, where the ‘Turkey Red’ building once stood, has been placed the mill bell dated 1781. To the east of this are re-erected columns from the sdemolished building.
Canteen at Milford Dyehouse, Derby Road
c.1800 - Listed Grade II
It
was built c.1800 and may well have been designed as an ‘eating’ room.
It is a plain building, built of coursed stone with chamfered corners
on the ground floor and has a slate roof.
Chimney at Milford Dyehouse, Derby Road
Late nineteenth century - Listed Grade II
This
tall round brick mill chimney dominated the site. It was built
in the late 19th century, replacing an earlier one that already
existed in 1832.