Cressbrook

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Cressbrook
Looking down on the Cressbrook Mill complex, from the diverted Monsal Trail.
Cressbrook shown within Derbyshire
OS grid reference	SK168731
District	Derbyshire Dales
Shire county	Derbyshire
Region	East Midlands
Constituent country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	BUXTON
Postcode district	SK17
Police	Derbyshire
Fire	Derbyshire
Ambulance	East Midlands
European Parliament	East Midlands
List of places: UK • England • Derbyshire

Coordinates: 53°15′18″N 1°44′56″W / 53.255, -1.749

Cressbrook is a village in the Peak District National Park in Derbyshire. Prior to the Enclosure Acts of 1762 Cressbrook did not exist.

A peppermint refinery was built at Water-cum-Jolly on the River Wye, then a textile mill complex was founded nearby, built by Richard Arkwright and later run by his son Richard, JL Philips and Brother Cotton Spinners and McConnel and Company.

Prior to the McConnel's period of ownership the village did not really exist at all beyond a collection of buildings in the immediate vicinity of the mill. When McConnel's professional workforce objected to the quality of the housing available he took it upon himself to build the model village that has now become Cressbrook. Building commenced in the late 1830's and was later extended by Henry McConnel's daughter, Mary Worthington in 1902 to include a village club, modelled on a working men's club. Cressbrook Mill went bust in 1965, after which time it changed from being a private mill estate to the public village that it now is.

The Monsal Trail passes Cressbrook Mill. This 8.5 mile walk and cycleway mostly follows the old trackbed of the Manchester, Buxton, Matlock and Midlands Junction Railway, but at Cressbrook the tunnel is closed for safety reasons, and the route diverts across the river Wye adjacent to the Mill.

[edit] Publications

The history of Cressbrook was recently captured in the publication Behind The View — Life and times in Cressbrook, a Derbyshire Mill village. The book was written by and published by the Cressbrook Community association with the help of a grant from the Local Heritage Initiative, a Countryside Agency project.