The Derwent Valley Mills
In December 2001, the Derwent Valley Mills in Derbyshire was inscribed on the World Heritage List. This international designation confirms the outstanding importance of the area as the birthplace of the factory system where in the 18th Century water power was successfully harnessed for textile production.
Stretching 15 miles down the river valley from Matlock Bath to Derby, the World Heritage Site contains a fascinating series of historic mill complexes, including some of the world’s first ‘modern’ factories.
The Derwent Valley in Derbyshire contains a series of 18th- and 19th- century cotton mills and an industrial landscape of high historical and technological interest. The mills played such a large role in shaping the factory system, the industrial revolution and modern society that the region has now become the Derwent Valley Mills World Heriage Site. The modern factory system owes its origins to the mills at Cromford, where Richard Arkwright’s inventions were first put into industrial-scale production.
The world heritage site which includes a series of mill complexes, river weirs, mill settlements and an historic transport network, is some 15 miles long, running from Sir Richard Arkwright’s magnificent Masson Mills at Matlock Bath to Derby at the southern end and following for the most part the River Derwent.