CROMFORD REVISITED

Doreen Buxton and Christopher Charlton, 2013, £18

ISBN: 978-0-9541940-6-2

Paperback, 192 pages

This new study of Cromford, the Arkwright family’s factory village, uses water-colours, drawings and photographs and previously unexplored archive material, to present an authoritative account of the origins and growth of this iconic settlement. By about 1850 the village had reached more or less its modern form, the work of three generations of Arkwright squires. Here the reader will find descriptions of many of the village’s key features: the several mills and their watercourses; Willersley Castle, the Arkwright mansion; Cromford Church; Cromford Canal Wharf, and the village schools. The authors also depict life in this paternalist community and when it came to an end, the struggles and deprivations of the inter war years. The book concludes with the discovery of Cromford as a heritage destination following the celebration in 1971 of the bicentenary of Sir Richard’s first Cromford Mill and the subsequent inscription of the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site in 2001.

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