History
Darley Abbey was originally the site of an Augustinian priory called Darley Abbey (or Darley Priory) which was established in 1137 and dedicated to St Helena. It had originally been founded in Derby by Robert de Ferrers, 2nd Earl of Derby and later removed to Darley. The Abbot was granted by this Earl and some of his successors many privileges in Duffield Forest and Chase. The Abbey was founded about 1140, and soon became one of the richest Abbeys in Derbyshire. The Monks owned and operated the original Derby School, but the Abbey was almost totally obliterated during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. There are only two remaining buildings from the monastic period. One is now The Abbey Pub which was renovated to its present state in 1978, and the other makes up part of a private dwelling on Abbey Lane.
The mill was built in 1783 by Thomas Evans, who hailed from a family with interests in lead iron and copper. Initially, he partnered with Richard Arkwright and Jedediah Strutt in the venture. It was a six storey building powered by water, with an enormous weir across the river. It was destroyed by fire in 1788 and rebuilt with sheets of tin nailed to the beams as protection.
By 1830, Evans constructed a factory village of three-storey cottages across the river from the mill for his 500 employees. This village, along with its toll road, still exists today. In 1970, the entire area was made into a conservation area, leading to it being part of the Derwent Valley Mills heritage area.
Read more about this topic: Darley Abbey
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“Postmodernism is, almost by definition, a transitional cusp of social, cultural, economic and ideological history when modernism’s high-minded principles and preoccupations have ceased to function, but before they have been replaced with a totally new system of values. It represents a moment of suspension before the batteries are recharged for the new millennium, an acknowledgment that preceding the future is a strange and hybrid interregnum that might be called the last gasp of the past.”
—Gilbert Adair, British author, critic. Sunday Times: Books (London, April 21, 1991)
“History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.... It is not “history” which uses men as a means of achieving—as if it were an individual person—its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)