Dark Satanic Mills

Late one afternoon, after a failed attempt to visit a Christmas market, we called off at Cromford on the way home for a walk around the shops in the old mill buildings and along the canal. It's a place I've visited many times, but on this occasion I was particularly struck by how gloomy and oppressive the old mills were.

Perhaps it was due to the failing light, the chilly weather, the emptiness of the mill yard, but they really did live up  to William Blake's 'dark satanic mills'  name. I've heard that Blake was probably referring to Albion mills in London, but Arkwright's Cromford mills were there at the forefront of the industrial revolution, bringing huge blocks of buildings, and a whole new way of working, to an otherwise rural environment. 

It's that pleasant countryside that attracts visitors today. The towpath beside the canal built to ship out factory goods now makes a pleasant level walking route along the valley, the High Peak Railway is a hillier cycle and walking route leading over the hills towards Buxton, and in Spring the nearby hillsides are covered in bluebells. But the mill workers would have little time to enjoy the surrounding countryside.

On a grim November day, with the few walkers pacing quickly past huddled in scarves and hats, the past seems closer - workers hurrying along to the mill before the sun has risen over the hills, horse-drawn barges heading along the canal. No time for leisure activities; just hard dawn to dusk (and possibly beyond) work.