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Wirksworth

Wirksworth is a small market town in Derbyshire, England, with a population of over 9,000. The population of the Wirksworth area including Cromford and many other small villages is about 12,000. Wirksworth is listed in the Domesday book in 1086.^[1][2] The town was granted its market charter by Edward I in 1306. The market is held every Tuesday in the market square in the busy town centre. Perhaps the finest building in Wirksworth is St. Mary's Church, which was one of the first centres of Christian teaching in England and is believed to date back to around 653 AD. The ancient Wirksworth Hundred or Wapentake was named after the town.

Wirksworth is on the border of Amber Valley and Derbyshire Dales districts

Historically, it developed as a centre for lead mining, but then later on, it branched into quarrying.

Many of the institutions in the area have connections with the Gell family, of Hopton Hall, whose most famous member was Sir John Gell, 1st Baronet, who fought on Parliament's side in the Civil War. One of his predecessors, Anthony Gell, founded the local grammar school, and one of his successors, Phillip Gell, opened the curiously-named Via Gellia (possibly named in allusion to the Roman Via Appia), a road from the family's lead mines around Wirksworth to the smelter in Cromford. (In the middle of the last century Anthony Gell School became one of the first comprehensive schools and remains a model for local, community-based education in a rural area)

Wirksworth is rumoured to be the ancient Roman town of Lutudarum, although there is much speculation as to the exact whereabouts/origins of this settlement. This used to be the capital of the area and up until the late industrial revolution, the town was the 5th biggest in Derbyshire, after Derby, Chesterfield, Matlock and Buxton. In 2009, a small team of volunteers undertook a project to discover a Roman fort near the Vicarage but the attempt was unsuccessful.^[3]

Early history

During the carboniferous period (between about 359 and 299 million years ago), Wirksworth was under tropical oceans, thus giving it vast quantities of limestone for quarrying. There is an extensive history of quarrying, which scars the surrounding of the town, whilst Dene Quarry is still operational in the neighbouring village of Cromford.

Close to Wirksworth in the Carsington Pastures is the Dream Cave, where the remains of a Woolly Rhino were found in the late 19th century.

The area may well have been visited by Homo erectus as long as 150,000 years ago, during warm inter-glacial periods. An Acheulean handaxe from the Lower Paleolithic has been found at Hopton nearby. From other remains found in the county there would seem to have been human presence at least periodically until the Romans arrived and found a thriving lead industry.

Perhaps the finest building in Wirksworth is St. Mary's Church, which was one of the first centres of Christian teaching in England and is believed to date back to around 653 AD. The ancient Wirksworth Hundred or Wapentake was named after the town. There is a tiny carving in the church of a miner with his pick and "kibble" or basket. This carving is also claimed by nearby Bonsall, where it was found. The ore was washed out by means of a sieve, the iron wire for which had been drawn in Hathersage since the Middle Ages. Smelting was carried out in "boles", hence the name Bolehill. The lead industry, the miner, the ore and the waste, were known collectively as "t'owd man."

One of the rectors of Wirksworth was Anthony Draycot who served from 1535 to his imprisonment in 1560. Draycott was the judge at the heresy trial of Joan Waste.^[4]

Lead mining

It is not known when lead mining began, but certainly it was flourishing in Roman times. ^[5] A possible Roman road led to a ford between Duffield and Milford and thence to the garrison at Derventio (Derby) and to Rykneld Street and possibly but not certainly, to the ports on the Humber. In Anglo-Saxon times there were many mines owned by the Abbey of Repton. Three lead mines are identified in the entry for Wirksworth in the Domesday book.^[1]

Every man had the right (and still does) to dig for ore wherever he chose, except in churchyards, gardens or roadways. All that was necessary to stake a claim was to place one's "stowce" or winch on the site and extract enough ore to pay tribute to the "Barmaster."

Henry VIII granted a charter to hold a miners' court in the town called the Bar Moot, which still exists, though the present building dates from 1814. Within it is a brass dish for measuring the levy which was due to the Crown. Even into the twentieth century, the punishment for stealing from a mine was to have one's hand nailed to the stowce. One then had the choice of tearing oneself loose or starving to death. The Barmote Court is still held today and controls all matters of lead mining.

There is a tiny carving in Wirksworth church, taken from Bonsall church during a restoration project and never returned, of a miner with his pick and "kibble" or basket. The carving is known as "t'Owd Man of Bonsall." The ore was washed out by means of a sieve, the iron wire for which had been drawn in Hathersage since the Middle Ages. Smelting was carried out in "boles", hence the name Bolehill. The lead industry, the miner, the ore and the waste, were known collectively as "t'owd man."

By the eighteenth century there were many thousands of mines, all worked individually. At this time, the London Lead Company was formed which brought in the finance to dig deeper mines, with drainage channels, called soughs, and bring in Newcomen steam engine pumps.

There was a workhouse in Wirksworth from 1724 to 1829. Called Babington House it was located on Green Hill (grid reference SK286541) and housed 60 inmates^[6].

Textiles

In 1777, Richard Arkwright leased the land and premises of a corn mill from Philip Gell of Hopton and converted it to spin cotton, using his water frame. This mill was adjacent to another, the Speedwell, owned by John Dalley, a local merchant. These mills still stand close together at Millers Green next to the Derby Road. Arkwright's was one of the first mills to try out the steam engine of Boulton and Watt, to replenish the millpond.

The Haarlem (as the mill came to be called) was sublet in 1792, when Arkwright's son, Richard, began to sell off the family's property assets in his move toward banking. It was given that name in 1815, when it was converted to weaving tape, by Madely, Hackett and Riley, who had established the Haarlem tape works in Derby in 1806. In 1879 the Wheatcroft family, who were producing tape at the Speedwell mill, expanded into Haarlem.

The two mills together employed 230 people, and it was said that their weekly output equalled the circumference of the earth, and that Wirksworth was the primary producer of red tape for Whitehall.

Both mills still exist. The Haarlem produces narrow fabrics, while the Speedwell produces cavity wall and roof insulation.

Literary connection

The Haarlem mill is said to be the model for the mill in George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss (although it is arguably also based on somewhere down south).

The Snowfield in George Eliot's Adam Bede is also said to be based in Wirksworth; Dinah Morris, an important character in that novel, is based on Eliot's aunt, who lived in Wirksworth and whose husband ran the silk mill, now Wirksworth Heritage Centre.

One of D. H. Lawrence's houses (Mountain Cottage), in which he lived with Frieda in 1918-19, stands below the B5023 road on the outskirts of Middleton-by-Wirksworth, approximately 1.5 mile NW of Wirksworth. Lawrence also reputedly spent a lot of time at Woodland Cottage on the opposite side of New Road. While staying in Middleton in the bitter winter of 1918-19, Lawrence wrote the short story A Wintry Peacock (published in 1921).

Television connection

Wirksworth was the prime location of ITV's Sweet Medicine (2003), as well as playing occasional roles in its forerunner Peak Practice. More recently, part of Mobile was filmed on a train on the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway, and a large amount of an episode of the BBC's Casualty was also filmed here.

Scientific connection

Abraham Bennet was curate of Wirksworth in the eighteenth century and did important early work in electricity, in association with Erasmus Darwin. There is a memorial plaque in Wirksworth church and a portrait by an unknown artist.^[7]

The surgeon and author Frederick Treves was in medical practice in the town, 1877-79 and a house on Coldwell Street is named after him.^[8]

Wirksworth today

Early June: The Wirksworth Well Dressing and Carnival

First Sunday after the 8th of September: The Clypping of the Church, an ancient custom, still observed, where the congregation joins hands to completely encircle the church.

September: Festival^[13]

Some visitor attractions include:

Ecclesbourne Valley Railway

Steeple Grange Light Railway

Wirksworth Heritage Centre

Peak District National Park