Do you think Lumsdale was a successful choice for the site of these mills?

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Patrick Hardern

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GCSE History

Year Ten Coursework

Teacher: Mrs Thompson (AT)

Friday 13 February 2009

Do you think Lumsdale was a successful choice for the site of these mills?

From the 17th century, right up to the start of the 20th century, the Lumsdale valley was a fairly large industrial site in the town of Matlock in Derbyshire. Several different industries such as bone-grinding for glue and fertiliser, cotton spinning after Richard Arkwright lost his patent of the water frame, bleaching, dyeing, barytes processing, paint making, lead smelting and sawing  went on in the valley until all plots of land were auctioned off on 6 June 1929. There was also a smithy. Throughout its functioning years, water power was used to drive the mills. The water would be held one of the three ponds in the valley, held in by a dam before being released on the opening/raising of a sluice gate. Once the water had been used for driving a mill, a sophisticated system of launders would carry it down the valley from mill to mill, except at mill one, where the tail race takes the water back into Bentley Brook. The remains of the valley were purchased by local resident Marjorie Mills, who later sold the valley to what is now the Arkwright Society who stopped most of the remains from collapsing completely. One of the three ponds has been fully restored, along with a dam and overflow pipe and impressive remains of a spectacular wheel pit lie just below Pond three. Some of the original lead smelting works were converted into accommodation for the workers, then later turned into holiday homes and now exist as private residencies and houses have also been built next to Bentley Brook.

Today, the Lumsdale Valley lies modestly and obscurely next to the town of Matlock between two A-roads with plenty of ruined mills, sluice gates and wheel pits. The ruins already imply that the site wasn't the best place for the mills, thought there is evidence to suggest otherwise, but it is certainly nowhere near as successful as Cromford where one of the mills only closed in 1993 and now exists as a shopping village and museum. It is so obscure that even some of the local people don't know it exists, even if they have lived there for about 40 years! One of the bleaching factories was turned into a glass-blowing studio, which is now closed and the bleach works are now closed to the since a storm in 1999 destroyed most of them and rendered them too dangerous.

First of all, in the 17th century, Lumsdale was a good ides for the site of the mills.  All the mills were driven by Bentley Brook, the local stream which ran all year round and was virtually free. One of the three ponds has been restored by the Arkwright society. Water power was also the only efficient form of power so it was used to drive mills all over the country. Everybody used water power, therefore Lumsdale was as good as anywhere However, years later, water power was starting to become largely superseded by steam power and even if a more efficient power source had been invented, it didn’t benefit the Lumsdale valley as there was no coal in the valley and no easy way of transporting it to the valley. A photograph of the valley, taken in 1907 shows a stream with launders criss-crossing the stream carrying water from mill to mill and a mill in the background with a large wheel pit next to the mill. This is a useful piece of evidence because it shows that someone thought it was worth spending money on the valley.  The remains of a wheel pit just below Pond three tell us there was water power there, and breast shot wheels were in use, so the owners of the mills obviously wanted to use the water as efficiently as possible. The physical evidence however is hard to interpret as most of it has vanished! The tithe award map from 1847 shows that there was still bleaching, paint making and water power in the valley, this is a useful piece of evidence as it also tells us what sort of properties were owned and which sort of industries were going on.  The sales leaflet from 1929 shows us the three ponds were still full of water when most of the valley's industries packed up, even though Cromford had already superseded Lumsdale long before this. This is a useful piece of evidence because it tells us how many industries had survived until the demise of the valley.

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Initially, Lumsdale was an attractive place for industry as most of the raw materials needed for different things such as barytes for paint-making, gritstone, glass, chemicals etc. could be obtained locally for example lead came from mines on Masson Hill, chemicals probably came from Chesterfield and gritstone probably came from the nearby moors. However, later on things changed which meant the Lumsdale Valley had no advantages over, say, Cromford. The lead mines ran out in the 19th century so lead had to be sourced from elsewhere. This was difficult as transportation had to be done by packhorse while if anything ...

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