| ||||||||||
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Find out about settlements though time in the page below or use these links for further information:
|
|||||||
Industry Through TimePrehistoryThere is some evidence in prehistory for activities that can be called 'industry' in the sense of manufacturing tools and materials for use. For most of prehistory, the main tools which have survived are made from flint and chert, though other materials such as wood would have also been used for tools. Flint and chert arrows, knives, awls and scrapers, amongst other implements, have been found across the Peak District dating from the Mesolithic to the Bronze Age. Flint does not occur naturally in the region so had to be obtained by exchange from communities with access to areas where flint nodules are found. These include the Trent Valley, Yorkshire/Lincolnshire Wolds and the Cheshire Plain. Chert occurs in limestone and is found at certain places on the limestone plateau such as Bradwell and Deep Dale, as well as in other limestone regions nearby such as the Yorkshire Dales. Lead and copper were both mined during later prehistory, though the evidence is tantalisingly small. An antler pick was found in Ecton Copper Mine which was radio-carbon dated to the Bronze Age. Lead objects dating to later prehistory have been found at Mam Tor and Gardom’s Edge and were probably made from locally mined ores. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - RomanLead mining was certainly undertaken during the Roman period to supply the increased demand for silver and for lead for plumbing and pewter. While no Roman mining has been definitely identified, lead ingots or pigs, dating to the 1st and 2nd centuries AD have been found in and around the Peak District. They are stamped with the name of Lutudarum or its abbreviations that has variously been interpreted as a tribe and a place. It is most likely the name of a company. Quernstones were also manufactured in large numbers at Wharncliffe in the north-east of the region. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Early MedievalExtensive lead working is suggested by annual rents of 300 shillings paid to Christ Church, Canterbury by the abbey at Repton which controlled the mines in the manor of Wirskworth in the 9th century AD. Domesday Book of 1086 records taxable lead-works, possibly smelters rather than miners, in the Royal manors of Matlock, Wirksworth, Ashford and Bakewell. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - MedievalThe two main industries of the Medieval period were lead mining and stone quarrying. Lead mining continued as small-scale ventures undertaken by miner/farmers with a complex set of customs governing how mines were worked, prospecting rights and how payments were made to owners of mineral rights and to the Church. Early mining was probably opencast along rakes with shallow shafts to underground workings. Picks, hammers, wedges and fire-setting were used to extract the ore. Lead smelting took place in bole hearths that usually used natural draughts on the tops of slopes or edges and were often situated near to wood supplies. The lead-rich slags produced by bole hearths were later resmelted in blackwork ovens. Medieval hearths have been found on Totley and Beeley moors and in the Upper Derwent. The latter was excavated, dated to the mid-15th century AD and found to have used a forced blast of air, possibly with foot bellows. Gritstone was ‘quarried’ by exploiting large surface boulders, digging pit-like delves or making small quarries. Using surface boulders was often a common right and many boulder-strewn areas show signs of working with shallow pits surrounded by dressing waste. Gritstone was used for a wide range of products including building stone, troughs, gateposts, lintels and millstones. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Post - MedievalThere is a huge range of evidence for post-medieval industries. Some continued from the Medieval period but on larger scales and others were new to the region, founded to exploit natural resources and consumer demand in cities.
By the 17th century most of the main lead rakes had been worked down to the water-table and drainage levels, known as soughs, were driven into hillsides to lower the local water level. In the 18th century steam-powered pumps were introduced to lift water out of the mines and the deepest shafts reached over 300m. Lead mining went into rapid decline in the second half of the 19th century as major capital ventures of the first part of the century failed. In the mid-16th century lead smelting radically altered with the introduction of water-powered smelting mills sited on small streams in the Derwent Valley and the foothills east of the Eastern Moors. Kiln-dried wood, known as whitecoal, was used as a fuel and the smelting mills were conveniently close to large valley-side woodlands. These were superceded by reverbatory furnaces in the 18th century, known locally as cupolas, which used coal for fuel. Thin seams of coal are found in the gritstone along the western and eastern sides of the region. Some mining started in the late Medieval period and was largely worked out by the end of the 19th century. Surface remains survive on the moorlands and mostly comprise opencast pits at outcrops or closely spaced bell pits each surrounded by a waste heap and occasionally a gincircle and access track. Deeper shafts and adits were sunk in the 19th century. In the 16th century millstones were being shipped to the Thames Estuary and in the 17th they were used throughout much of eastern and south-eastern England when continental stone was difficult to obtain. This trade collapsed in the 18th century as continental stones became available again. Some of the millstone quarries got a new lease of life in the 19th century producing coarse grindstones for the Sheffield tool-making industry.
Limestone quarrying around Buxton increased dramatically with the opening of railways in the 1830s and 1860s. Lime was produced on a small-scale by farmers using field limekilns for agricultural uses but also on an industrial scale around Buxton and Bradwell from the 17th to 19th centuries. Lime was used in the chemical and construction industries as well as being used in large quantities as a fertiliser during the enclosure and attempted improvement of moorland commons in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Other materials which were quarried were copper at Ecton Hill between the early 17th and late 19th centuries, and Blue John at Castleton from the 18th century for use as ornaments and jewellery. To find out more about Blue John today go to the Castleton cave tour. Woodlands had been used for a long time for fuel, usually for nearby lead smelters. In the 18th century more extensive use was made of the woods in the Upper Derwent for charcoal. This is shown by the survival of over 250 charcoal burning platforms and documents which record its production. Ironworks such as Attercliffe Forge in Sheffield, Wortley Top Forge near Stocksbridge, and Mousehole Forge at Malin Bridge rented woods to make charcoal. Though situated at distances of 16 kilometres or more from the Upper Derwent and often with wood supplies at hand they still chose to look this far for charcoal. This may have been due to over-exploitation of woodlands nearby or better commercial deals being made with the Upper Derwent landowners. In the late 18th century the River Derwent was home to many of the world’s earliest mechanized mills. Arkwright built cotton mills at Cromford, Cressbrook, Ashbourne, Bakewell, Wirksworth and Matlock Bath, while competitors built mills at Litton, Calver, Bamford and Edale. Derbyshire was actually part of the Lancashire cotton-production area. Larger mills were built at Glossop, New Mills, Marple and Stalybridge so transforming these places into industrial towns. The resulting growth of towns and cities such as Sheffield and Manchester required increased water supplies and a number of the valleys overlooking these urban areas were dammed for reservoirs. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ModernIndustrial production has dramatically increased in scale during the 20th century. Many of the earlier industries situated in the Peak District declined, initially as industries became based in cities and later as foreign manufacturing increased. While many mills remain they are mostly derelict or converted to other uses. The last lead mine, Millclose Mine in Darley Dale, closed in 1939. Instead, the increasing demands for water for nearby cities and their industries lead to the flooding of some valleys such as the Upper Derwent, Carsington and Goyt. Many waste hillocks from earlier lead mining have been reworked and removed to exploit the other minerals the lead miners left behind – barytes, fluorspar and calcite – the gangue material which made up about 90% of any vein. Gritstone and limestone quarries still continue to be successful, supplying huge quantities of building stone and road aggregate. The scale and impact of quarrying sometimes requires decisions to be made between the impact of commercial quarrying and the conservation of the National Park landscape. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
|||||||
|
 |
||||||
  |
|||||||
