Since what by Nature was denied
By art and industry’s supplied.
SAMUEL BUTLER: Upon Plagiaries
IT WAS explained in the first chapter that the larger industrial centres of the Peak District were deliberately excluded from the National Park. As a result, apart from quarrying, industrial activity within the Park is restricted to scattered small-scale undertakings. The exception is the cement works in the Hope Valley, which employ about 500 people. This is by far the largest manufacturing unit and is the only one which seriously obtrudes and gives a jarring note to the landscape, though the quarries on Eldon Hill and in Stony Middleton offend only a little less. From the economic standpoint, however, the location of this industry is highly favourable. The basic materials, limestone and shale, are immediately at hand (as mentioned see here) and the large quantity of water required is also available. A short branch line from the main railway provides for the movement of coal, which is brought from collieries in east Derbyshire, not many miles away. This is an important item, for some six or seven tons of coal are consumed in the production of one ton of cement. Prior to the opening of these works in 1929, there was only one other cement-making plant in the north of England. Although cement is a bulky product, when packed in bags it is most conveniently distributed by road transport at least for distances up to forty miles from the factory. Within such a radius from the Hope Valley works lie the industrial districts of South Lancashire and the West Riding, so that these areas provide a valuable market. In addition to the amount carried by a fleet of nearly a hundred vehicles, considerable quantities are conveyed by rail.
Now there is no doubt that industrial undertakings are gradually becoming more responsive to the need for avoiding unnecessary disfigurement of the countryside, and the case of the Hope Valley works is of special interest in this respect. When the project was first made known, a vehement outcry not unnaturally greeted the threat to the valley, and when cement production actually began some of the worst fears were realised, as was inevitable with such an industry. This is not the place to pass judgment as to whether the choice of site was right or wrong; in any case it was made long before the present planning legislation came into being. Moreover, whatever the effects upon the surroundings, it can be amply shown that the industry afforded timely relief to local unemployment and instilled new life into the district. Eventually the company owning the works yielded to the pressure of public opinion concerning the effect of its quarrying and processing operations. In 1942 it agreed to draw up a plan for development which should safeguard the amenities of the area as far as possible. For this purpose a distinguished architect and landscape designer was appointed. The report accompanying his plan recognised the conflict of interests in the following words: “On the one hand is an historic landscape and on the other a highly productive industry; and both are of national value.” Since that time the company has acted on various suggestions made in the plan. Even earlier, however, some measures were taken to deal with the enormous quantities of fine dust created by cement-making. At considerable cost equipment was installed by means of which over 90 per cent of the dust was trapped before it escaped into the atmosphere. The remaining 10 per cent, however, continued to be a source of annoyance, so that a few years ago the height of the works chimney was raised to 400 ft., enabling the rest of the dust to drift away at an elevation well above the village of Hope and its neighbourhood. Yet the chimney and the grey-white plume issuing from it became a landmark for miles around, causing some people to become even more resentful than before. In implementing other proposals in the development plan, the firm has adopted a responsible attitude to the amenity requirements of the area. Thus the filling of the old Hadfield Quarry with waste from a new one and the restoration of disused clay pits by tree-planting have helped to reduce the disfigurement of the surface (Plate XXb, see here).
There is an even larger industry which although not included in the National Park, is so close to the boundary as to make little difference. This is the Ferodo Works producing brake-linings at Chapel-en-le-Frith. The story of its development is extremely interesting for it typifies the achievements of the numerous individuals possessing energy and initiative to whom the Peak District has given birth. The founder of the industry was Herbert Frood, who lived at Combs, a village near Chapel just within the Park boundary. In his younger days Frood was a footwear salesman and on his travels through The Peak he often gave thought to the problem of the braking of carts on steep hills. The idea of a brake-lining occurred to him and as the result of experiments carried out in a small shed in his garden, aided by power from a water-wheel, it was not long before he invented a brake-shoe. By 1897 Frood’s brake-linings for horse-drawn vehicles were in large demand and he secured part of an old mill at Chapel for making them. In a few years the dawn of the motor age gave him new opportunities. With the successive improvements which he made to brake and clutch linings, output expanded rapidly, and in 1920 a new factory was started on the site of the present works. The latter now employ nearly 3,000 people and are said to be the largest in the world producing friction linings. Here is an example of an industry which attained national importance in a few decades. Its initial success was due to the personal qualities of its founder and to the skill of the workers he recruited from the immediate neighbourhood. Yet almost all the raw material required, such as rubber, asbestos, gums and resins, must be imported from abroad. On the other hand, besides serving the home market, the firm has developed a large export trade. Ferodo—an anagram on Frood’s name—originated from a challenge afforded by the Derbyshire hills and the same hills today serve as an admirable testing ground for its products.
TEXTILE MILLS PAST AND PRESENT
Most of the small mills and factories within the National Park are discreetly located in a few villages or are hidden in the deep dales. The chief form of industrial activity is textile-working. Ever since Ark-wright demonstrated the value of water as a source of power at Cromford in the eighteenth century, first by using the discharge from the Cromford Sough in 1770 and a few years later the Derwent itself, cotton-spinning has been a characteristic Derbyshire industry. Following the success of Arkwright and his partner, Strutt, many mills sprang up on the banks of Derbyshire streams, and for a time this industry was as important here as in Lancashire itself. J. Farey, writing in 1811, noted more than 120 cotton mills in the county. The old mill in Edale is interesting in this connection. It was built in the seventeenth century as a corn mill and was later used as a tannery; early in the nineteenth century it was converted into a cotton mill and did not finally cease production until 1934.
Although it was formerly more widespread, textile processing survives today in the valleys of the Derwent and Wye. Cotton doubling is carried on at Bamford and at the Cressbrook Mill in the Wye Valley; at Litton Mill, farther up the Wye, nylon and terylene are worked. Two small factories in Bakewell produce knitted wear, while near the south-western boundary of The Peak two dyeworks operate on behalf of silk manufacturers in Leek.
Most of these mills originally required water both for power and for processing, but today their machinery is driven by electricity. The Wye and the Derwent, however, are both used for generating electricity on a small scale, the Wye more than the Derwent, because the great storage reservoirs restrict the flow of the latter. Bamford Mill produces a little power from the Derwent and there are times in the year when there is sufficient water to supply about one-third of its needs. The Wye is used for the same purpose at Litton and Cressbrook Mills as well as at Bakewell, where a factory making electric storage batteries has long obtained power from this source. It originated in 1777 as one of Ark-wright’s cotton mills, but the present industry dates only from 1898. Until quite recently its two great water-wheels were a familiar sight to people passing by on the Buxton road. They were removed in 1956 when new generating equipment, still using the river, was installed. Except for a short period in the summer, the current obtained in this way provides a useful supplement to the main supply. This contribution depends upon an earlier impounding of the Wye upstream, which forms the “Ashford Lake,” together with the large old mill pond (Fig. 10, see here).
Some of the mills, the one at Cressbrook for instance, built of stone on simple and well-proportioned lines, are dignified and even elegant in appearance, and they remain as satisfying examples of the industrial architecture of an earlier age. The cotton mills in particular, however, face problems of labour supply, high costs of power, and distance from the main spinning centres in Lancashire, so that it is not easy to predict how much longer they will persist.
VILLAGE FOOTWEAR FACTORIES
At Eyam and Stony Middleton, close to the Derwent Valley, footwear production, established over a century ago, remains active. Light shoes are made at Eyam and heavy boots for miners and quarrymen at Middleton. Of the four little factories in the latter village, the two smallest still produce hand-made boots, while the two larger ones each have an annual output of some 25,000 pairs of machine-made heavy boots, most of which are sold in the Derbyshire coalfield. Here again the problems of labour supply and production costs are apparent, the employment position being made more difficult in recent years by competition from the local limestone quarries and the fluorspar mine at Eyam. The making of shoes at Eyam, on the other hand, is favoured by the considerable use of female workers of whom there is no shortage. In fact it was this circumstance which led a Leicester footwear firm to start a branch factory here only a few years ago.
NEW INDUSTRIES
With one or two exceptions, such as the manufacture of electric batteries at Bakewell, the other industries located within the Park are of recent origin. Most of them were introduced as part of the dispersal policy during and just after the last war, chiefly as branch units of firms in Sheffield and Chesterfield. These have certain features in common: they are flexible as regards location, they use largely unskilled or semiskilled labour, including a considerable proportion of females, they all use road transport and have no power requirements other than electricity. None, moreover, requires so specialised a type of building as to make the adaptation of old ones impracticable. Disused premises in or near the Derwent Valley offered the best prospects to such firms, especially as the area lay within daily travelling distance from Sheffield. As a result light engineering was introduced at Bradwell, a steel-hardening and polishing works at Brough, the making of metal fittings in the old cotton mill at Calver and also at Bamford. Other forms of engineering were brought to Bakewell and Tideswell, the latter place also being chosen for the making of plastic articles and for a separate plastics research unit. At Brough two industries related to the Hope Valley cement works have appeared. One is the manufacture of precast concrete products, using cement from the large works and limestone from the Eldon Hill quarry, and the other the making of paper bags used by the cement works and the local light engineering firms.
It is clear that the recent phase of small-scale industrial development owes much to the availability of buildings. In this respect the pattern of distribution closely resembles that of the old textile mills, which in turn were dependent on water-power sites. Some large villages, like Youlgreave and Winster, which are not situated on major streams and which had no disused premises to offer, have not attracted new industry. It is also significant that a primary reason for the persistence of the new industries since the war is the amenity value of their surroundings. Given good communications, the move from the crowded city has been appreciated by employees, including technical staffs. By now most of the firms have fully utilised the premises they acquired so that further development can only take place with the erection of new buildings. At this point, the question of industrial expansion in relation to national park amenities may well arise.
Lastly, mention should be made of a small industry which, after several centuries of activity, is now almost defunct. In the yawning entrance to the Peak Cavern at Castleton, long flat terraces cut into the limestone indicate the scene of the ropemakers’ craft. The rope-walks extend for nearly 300 ft. into the cave and on the uppermost platform are several pieces of the old hand-worked apparatus, still occasionally used. Until very recently there was a small but specialised output, using cotton and hemp fibres, of such interesting items as bell ropes, sash cord for windows, clothes lines and ropes for small boats.
REFERENCE
Report and Analysis of Survey. Peak District National Park Development Plan (1955)