Walk 3 – A walk to Willersley Castle & the Railway Station

This walk will take about an hour and a half.

From the Market Place, walk left and cross the A6 at the traffic lights. Walk past the octagonal wooden building, now The Tors cafe and mentioned by the author Alison Uttley as a barber’s shop where she had her hair cut as a girl. Go past the bus stop and then turn left onto Church Walk. To the left, across the river you can see Willersley Castle. Sir Richard Arkwright began building here on a site cut from solid rock. He commissioned a London architect to build a mansion befitting his wealth and importance. The house was badly damaged by fire, and Sir Richard died a year later in 1792, never having lived there. The house was completed by his son Richard. Pevsner described it as “classical in conception, but romanticised by battlements.” During the Great War the castle was used as an auxiliary hospital, while in the Second World War the Salvation Army’s Mothers’ Hospital in Clapton, London, was evacuated here. Between 1940 and 1946 over 4000 babies were born at Willersley!

Ahead is St Mary’s Church,  built by Richard Arkwright as a private chapel  It was finally completed in 1797, five years after his death, and opened for public worship by his son, Richard Arkwright Junior. Originally a plain Georgian building, it was much altered in 1858 by Peter Arkwright. The west front was added and the tower enlarged. Later a handsome clock face was erected, dated AD 1869, but the mechanism dates from 1796. Inside there is an organ gallery. Wall paintings and stained glass windows were added to celebrate the first centenary. Plaques and monuments commemorate the Arkwright family. Sir Richard was buried here after being first interred at Matlock. Other members of the family are buried in the small graveyard by the river, including Frederic who was killed in the First World War.

Walk to the end, past the church and turn left. Go past the entrance to Cromford Meadows towards Cromford Bridge. On the right is a small building erected in the 1790s in the style of a Fishing Lodge, and inscribed “Piscatoribus sacrum”. It was originally occupied by the water bailiff for the Arkwright estate, and was lived in until 1914. Between this building and the river bank are the remains of an early 15th century Bridge Chapel. Little is left of the chapel beyond part of the north and south walls, and the footings of the chancel to the east. There is an arched doorway and a window in the south wall, while the north wall contains a look-out or squint hole through which the river can be seen. At one stage in its history the chapel was used as a cottage, pulled down by Arkwright 2 in 1796 when the new church was built. On the bridge is an inscription carved into the stone – “THE LEAP OF MR B.H.MARE JUNE 1697”. Its meaning had been forgotten and various theories put forward, until in 1933 Mr Henry Douglas wrote in “The Derbyshire Countryside” that according to a family tradition it related to Benjamin Hayward of Bridge House, whose horse failed to take the bend and leapt over the parapet into the river below. Both survived. Benjamin Hayward was married to Elizabeth Wigley, who was from an old Cromford family.

Cromford Bridge at that time would have been only 12 feet wide. It was built in the 15th century at the site of a ford, with three pointed arches, and refuges over the bridge supports. Excavations at the chapel in the 1950s revealed traces of a stone abutment to an earlier timber bridge. About 200 years ago it was widened on the north side, where the arches are rounded. Having crossed the bridge, turn right to visit the Railway Station. The steep road climbing to Starkholmes was the route north before a way was blasted through Scarthin Tor. Continue on the road by the river, passing Cromford Bridge House, now re-named Cromford Bridge Hall.  It was built by the Wigley family of Wirksworth in the 17th century. In the attics there is evidence of an earlier timber framed house.

Cromford Railway Station is up a left turn before the railway bridge. This stretch of railway from Ambergate to Rowsley was engineered by George Stephenson, and opened in June 1849. It was extended to Manchester eighteen years later. In the original plans the station was to be sited at the south end of Cromford Meadows, where the line veered away from the river, with plans for a new canal wharf. Negotiations took place with Peter Arkwright, grandson of Sir Richard, who wanted sidings built to the existing wharf. Failure to agree led to the opening of a temporary station in the cutting at the mouth of Willersley Tunnel, and this became its permanent position.

The ornate Stationmaster’s house, built around 1855, was designed by G H Stokes, the son-in-law of Sir Joseph Paxton, in a French style. It was extended to the rear in 1911. The waiting room on the up-line, now unused, was built in 1860. It was originally the main station building, connected to the telegraph, and had a clock tower. The tall chimneys at each end have been removed. In 1995 this building was pictured on the front of a single by the pop group Oasis. In 1874 a new station building was erected on the down-line platform, served by a new access road. The footbridge was built by the Butterley Company in 1887. The line from Matlock to Manchester was closed in 1967. East Midlands Trains runs a service between Derby and Matlock. The return to Cromford, along Mill Lane, will take you past Arkwright’s Mill, (see separate walk), on the right and Rock House up high to the left, the home of Richard Arkwright from1776 until his death in 1792.