| Wirksworth | |
|---|---|
 Market Place | |
  Wirksworth Location withinDerbyshire | |
| Population | 4,902 (2021 census) |
| OS grid reference | SK2853 |
| District | |
| Shire county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | MATLOCK |
| Postcode district | DE4 |
| Dialling code | 01629 |
| Police | Derbyshire |
| Fire | Derbyshire |
| Ambulance | East Midlands |
| UK Parliament | |
| |
Wirksworth is a market town and civil parish in theDerbyshire Dales district ofDerbyshire, England. Its population was 4,902 in the2021 census.[1] Wirksworth contains the source of theRiver Ecclesbourne. The town was granted a market charter byEdward I in 1306 and still holds a market on Tuesdays in the Memorial Gardens. The parish church ofSt Mary's is thought to date from 653. The town developed as a centre forlead mining and stone quarrying. Many lead mines were owned by the Gell family of nearbyHopton Hall.
The name was recorded asWerchesworde in theDomesday Book of 1086 A.D.[2] Outlying farms (berewicks) wereCromford, Middleton,Hopton, Wellesdene [sic],Carsington,Kirk Ireton andCallow. It gave its name to the earlier Wirksworthwapentake or hundred.[2] The Survey of English Place-Names records Wyrcesuuyrthe in 835, Werchesworde in 1086, and Wirksworth(e) in 1536.[3]
Thetoponym might be "Weorc's enclosure",[3] or "fortified enclosure".[4]
The origins of Wirksworth are thought to have related to the presence of thermal warm water springs nearby,[4] coupled with a sheltered site at the head of a glaciated valley, able to yield cereals such as oats and provide timber suitable for building.
The Wirksworth area in the White Peak is known for Neolithic and Bronze Age remains.[5]
Woolly rhino bones were found by lead miners in 1822 inDream Cave, on private land between Wirksworth and present-dayCarsington Water. A nearby cave at Carsington Pasture yielded prehistoric finds in the late 20th century.[6]
InRoman Britain, thelimestone area of today's Derbyshire yieldedlead, the prime site probably beingLutudarum in the hills south and west of present-dayMatlock.[7] Wirksworth is a candidate for the site ofLutudarum.[4] Roman roads from Wirksworth lead toBuxton (The Street) and toBrough-on-Noe (The Portway).[8] The town has the oldest charter of any in thePeak District, dating from 835, when the Abbess of Wirksworth granted nearby land to Duke Humbert of Mercia.[4]
Many lead mines inAnglo-Saxon times were owned byRepton Abbey. Three of these are identified in Wirksworth'sDomesday Book entry from 1086.[9] Scientists studying a Swiss glacial ice core have found that levels of lead in European air pollution between 1170 and 1216 were similar to those during theIndustrial Revolution, pointing to the local lead and silver smelting around Wirksworth,Castleton etc. as the main source with a remarkable correlation.[10][11][12] There is a tiny carving in Wirksworth Church of a miner with a pick and whisket (basket); the figure is known as "T'Owd Man of Bonsall." It stood inBonsall Church for centuries, but was moved for safekeeping during a restoration project. It was later found in a Bonsall garden and moved to Wirksworth by the vicar of the time. The ore was washed out through a sieve, whose iron wire had been drawn inHathersage since theMiddle Ages. Smelting took place inboles, hence the nameBolehill. The lead industry, the miner, the ore and the waste were also known collectively as "t'owd man".[13]
Abarmote court was established in the town in 1288 during the reign ofEdward I in order to regulatelead mining;[14] anyone had a right to dig for ore wherever he chose, except in churchyards, gardens or roadways. All that was needed for a claim was to place one's stowce (winch) on the site and extract enough ore to pay tribute to the "barmaster". The present Moot Hall, where the barmote court met, dates from 1814.[15]
By the 18th century, there were many thousand lead mines worked individually.Daniel Defoe gives a first-hand account of such a family and the miner at work.[16] At this time, theLondon Lead Company was formed to provide finance for deeper mines with drainage channels, calledsoughs, and introduceNewcomen steam-engine pumps.[17]
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Many institutions in the area have ties with the Gell family of nearbyHopton Hall. One member,Sir John Gell, 1st Baronet, fought on Parliament's side in theCivil War. A predecessor,Anthony Gell, founded the local grammar school, and a successor, Phillip Gell, opened theVia Gellia (perhaps an allusion to the Roman Via Appia), a road from the family lead mines round Wirksworth to a smelter inCromford. More recently he has been remembered in the name ofAnthony Gell School.[18]
Thecarboniferous limestone around Wirksworth has been much quarried over the town's history, resulting in several rock faces and cliffs surrounding the town. There was aworkhouse from 1724 to 1829, calledBabington House, standing on Green Hill (grid referenceSK286541) and housing 60 inmates.[19]
In 1777,Richard Arkwright leased land and premises for a corn mill fromPhilip Eyre Gell of Hopton and converted it to spincotton, using hiswater frame. It was the world's first cotton mill to use asteam engine to replenish the millpond that drove itswaterwheel.[20][21] The mill was adjacent to another, Speedwell Mill, owned by John Dalley, a local merchant. Arkwright's mill was sublet in 1792, when Arkwright's son,Richard, began to sell off family property and move into banking. It was namedHaarlem Mill in 1815, when converted to weaving tape by Madely, Hackett and Riley, who had set up Haarlem Tape Works in Derby in 1806. In 1879 the Wheatcroft family, which produced tape at Speedwell Mill, expanded into Haarlem. The two mills together employed 230; their weekly output was said to equal the circumference of the earth; Wirksworth was the main producer ofred tape forWhitehall. These mills were close together at Miller's Green next to the Derby road. Haarlem Mill now houses an art collective; Speedwell Mill has been replaced by private houses and a carpentry workshop. The growing prosperity of the town led to the development ofWirksworth Town Hall in 1871.[22]
In the2011 census, Wirksworth civil parish had 2,416 dwellings, 2,256 households and a population of 5,038.[23]
Areas of Wirksworth include Yokecliffe to the west, Gorseybank and Bournebrook to the south-east, Miller's Green to the south-west, and Steeple Grange and Bolehill to the north. Bolehill, although technically a hamlet in its own right in Wirksworth's suburbs, is the oldest and most northerly part of the town, while Yokecliffe is a large estate in the westerly area. Modern houses have been built in the Three Trees area and at the bottom of Steeple Grange (Spring Close and Meerbrook Drive).
In the future, it is planned to build new housing estates to the north of the centre and in the disused Middle Peak Quarry. These will total around 800 houses if they come to fruition.
There are five schools in Wirksworth:[24]Church of England and county infants, and regularly combined but on two sites, Wirksworth Junior School, theAnthony Gell School and Callow Park College.
Anthony Gell was a local, requested by Agnes Fearne to build a grammar school on her death. The original site is now a private house on the edge of the churchyard. The current school is an 11–18 comprehensive, built on a larger site by the Hannage Brook with about 800 pupils. The school's five houses are named after Fearne, Arkwright (Sir Richard Arkwright), Wright (Joseph Wright of Derby), Gell and Nightingale (Florence Nightingale). Its catchment area is the town and surrounding villages:Middleton,Carsington,Brassington,Kirk Ireton,Turnditch,Matlock Bath,Cromford andCrich. The Anthony Gell School qualifies as aSports College.
Wirksworth railway station is a stop on theheritageEcclesbourne Valley Railway. Services operate to and fromDuffield,[25] which provides a connection to theNational Rail network for ongoingEast Midlands Railway services toNottingham,Derby andMatlock on theDerwent Valley Line.[26]
The town is served by five bus routes:[27]
Local news and television programmes are provided byBBC East Midlands andITV Central. Television signals are received from the local relay TV transmitter.[28]
Wirksworth's local radio stations areBBC Radio Derby on 95.3 FM,Capital Midlands on 102.8 FM, andGreatest Hits Radio Midlands on 101.8 FM.
TheMatlock Mercury is the town's weekly local newspaper.[29]
Fanny Shaw's Playing Field, just beyond the centre, is the main recreation area for the north of the town. It includes a play area. In the south is the "Rec", another children's play area, along with cricket and football pitches. There are public toilets in the car park alongside the United Reformed Church at Baromote Croft.
Haarlem Mill has been mentioned as the possible model for the mill inGeorge Eliot'sThe Mill on the Floss. The town of Snowfield in George Eliot'sAdam Bede is also said to be based in Wirksworth; Dinah Morris, a character in that novel, is based on Eliot's aunt, who lived in Wirksworth and whose husband ran the silk mill, which used to house the Wirksworth Heritage Centre.
Wirksworth was the main location of ITV'sSweet Medicine in 2003, having featured as an occasional location in its forerunner,Peak Practice. More recently, some ofMobile was filmed on a train on theEcclesbourne Valley Railway, and much of an episode of theBBC seriesCasualty was set in the town.
Wirksworth features in the 2015 memoir,The Long Road Out of Town, by author and journalist Greg Watts, who grew up there.[34]
Middle Peak Quarry, on the outskirts of Wirksworth, featured in the 2010 music video "Unlikely Hero" bythe Hoosiers.
Wirksworth is twinned withDie in southern France and withFrankenau in the Kellerwald range south-west of the Talgang, Germany, through the Wirksworth Twinning Association.
Wirksworth civil parish contains 108listed buildings and structures, protected byHistoric England for their historic or architectural interest. Theparish church of St Mary islisted Grade I and eight structures (15 Market Place, 35 Green Hill, 1 Coldwell Street, Haarlem Mill, Wigwell Grange, the Red Lion Hotel, Gate House and the former grammar school) are Grade II*.[39]
Wirksworth Heritage Centre illustrates the history of Wirksworth from its prehistoric Dream Cave andwoolly rhinos, through its Roman and lead mining histories, to modern times.[citation needed]
The studyWirksworth and Five Miles Around, byRichard Hackett, includes census information, notes on church monuments, accounts of crimes, church wardens' accounts, maps, a transcription of "Ince's pedigrees", monument inscriptions and old photographs, parish registers and wills.
