Communities
The
Derwent Valley World Heritage Site nomination contains within its 24
kilometres (north to south) four industrial settlements. It extends from
the edge of Matlock Bath and Cromford in the north and almost to the
centre of the city of Derby in the south. The industrial settlements
which are included are Cromford, Belper, Milford and Darley
Abbey. The spine linking the settlements which contain the principal
industrial monuments within the site is the river. Historically it was
the water power which the Derwent and its tributaries offered that provided
the raison d’être for the growth of these settlements.
Much
of the Valley’s landscape setting, valued in the eighteenth century
for its picturesque quality, has survived and it forms an attractive
context for the mills and their associated housing.
The Valley’s late 18th century and early 19th century industrial housing has survived even more comprehensively than the mill structures. Almost as soon as they were built the Derwent Valley factory villages were seen as exemplars demonstrating the key components of community development. It was on these foundations that others in the United Kingdom and elsewhere were later to build the planned communities which have played such a large part in shaping urban industrialised society.