Corn Millers in Calver

Corn Millers in Calver Ann Hall [email protected] May 2019 Introduction In July 2013 the Longstone Local History Group had an evening meeting at Calver Corn Mill where we explored the old buildings and heard how the mill machinery had been replaced with a modern replica and used to make hydroelectric power. As a way of thanking the owners I researched the millers who had inhabited the buildings from its earliest times. There are interesting articles published on the structure of the mill building, one of which includes a summary of the people who were connected to the work of the mill (1). My interest in family history helped me to research this aspect of the Corn Mill in greater depth. I have used Parish registers, British Newspaper Archives, Town Directories, Ancestry online, the Matlock Record Office and Local Studies Library and I have collected the memories of locals and the present owners. Some of the information is uncertain and I have tried to indicate areas where I am less sure of the facts. If you have any extra information which I could include in this article please contact me [email protected] and I shall be pleased to include this with an acknowledgement. Summary Until the second half of the 1700s the water power was used at the site associated with lead smelting. Then the power was used for corn milling, and the mill, farm and domestic buildings were developed. Eventually the mill ceased to operate around 1904 and the buildings were used for farming alone. In 1986 mill and farm buildings were sold and the corn mill and mill farm house remain today as domestic buildings. The water power is used to generate electricity. • The Location of the site • The Early History of the site – lead smelting • Corn Millers at Calver - overview • How successful was the Calver Corn Mill • Explaining the unusual wheel construction • Calver Corn Mill and the Frost family • The Calver Corn Mill Charity • Chronology of Corn Millers and Farmers • Extra Information Census records Owners of Calver Corn Mill • References The Location of the mill site Images taken from OS 1898 Derbyshire XV1.16 National Library of Scotland https://maps.nls.uk/index.html and Openstreetmap 2018 https://www.openstreetmap.org Calver Bridge from the Hills. Early 1900s. Calver Corn Mill and farm in the foreground. Mill ponds can be seen to the left and right of these buildings. Newburgh Terrace is behind the left pond. The Derbyshire Craft Centre building is out of sight on the right. Postcard image kindly supplied by David Turner. Early history of the Site – Lead Smelting The water power at the site (SK24467443) was first used to work the bellows of an ore hearth at a lead smelting mill. Kiernan (2) has found circumstantial evidence that Paul Tracey carried out water powered smelting at Calver Mill from 1584. Prior to this lead smelting on the site was by the foot blast method where there were two furnaces and two bellows “blowen by mens fete” are recorded. Willies (1) postulates that by 1773, because ore hearth technology was out dated, it is possible that the hearth was adapted for slag or low-grade ore smelting. Evidence for both lead smelting and low grade smelting activities have been found nearby. The present owners of land adjacent to the mill, Mr and Mrs Shepherd, possess a large lump of lead slag which supports the operation of lead smelting. A heavily vitrified ceramic disc was uncovered in their garden over 50 years ago. The disc, of unknown function, was found in a small bank next to the Calver Mill Sough which has fed water to drive the mill wheel since about 1863. The disc has a similar appearance to lids used to cover crucibles in the steel making process. Modestly elevated levels of lead on the lid suggest that the reuse of a steel melting crucible from elsewhere in some element of lead smelting in the 18th century. Hall et al. (3) conclude that it may be that the crucible lid was used when small quantities of lead ore or slag were heated in a crucible during testing or other assay-like activities. A list of the owners and tenants of the mill during this period are given by Crossley and Kiernan. Members of Longstone Local History Group examining the crucible lid, described above. Corn millers in Calver. The earliest record for a corn mill on this site is from an Assignment of Lease document dated 1776 and 1794 concerning “a small plot in Calver formerly the site of a smelting mill containing an acre and a half as it was when marked out for erecting a water corn mill”. The lease was held by John Bolsover and Thomas Mellor, millers of Ashford, and the tenancy was passed from John Morten, chandler of Ashford in 1776 to John Bolsover. John Morten had failed to build a mill as described in the lease and the document passed the responsibility to John Bolsover with agreement to complete the works as soon as possible. (Derbyshire Record Office). The land and mill was owned by the Hassop Estate. This suggests that the corn mill was built and operating not long after 1776. The pre-existing smelting mill was described as “tumbling down” in 1772 and it closed in 1773 which makes the building of the corn mill likely to have been between 1776 and 1794. The earliest record specifically naming a corn miller at Calver came from an 1801 advertisement for two journeymen millers by Charles Bolsover of Ashford who may have been related to John Bolsover mentioned in the paragraph above. The latest record came from the 1904 Kelly's Directory for Calver where Thomas Marples is described as “draper and miller”. Using this evidence the mill is likely to have operated as a corn mill from before 1794 (possibly 1778) to at least 1904. I cannot be sure that all the people described in this article lived in the mill building but I have added this information when it is known. Indeed they may not have worked at the Calver Corn Mill but at some other mill in the district. Also millers from other villages may have worked in the Corn mill at Calver. It is worth noting that Calver Cotton Mill was adapted from a corn mill on the site beside the River Derwent but it opened in late 1778 so it is certain that none of the corn millers that I have discovered from 1801 will have worked there. There are four people who have the address given as Calver Mill in the Baslow Registers between 1793 and 1812; Richard Peall, Robert Farrer, Joseph Allen and Horatio Mason. Horatio Mason was a manager of the Cotton Mill and this suggests that all the families with this address may have been associated with the cotton mill but they may represent some of the first millers who lived in the Corn Mill although this is unlikely. The replacement of the traditional village corn mill at Calver Bridge with the Cotton Mill in 1778 may indicate that the “new” Corn Mill on the lead smelting site opened soon after this date to provide corn grinding for local farmers and to maintain an income for the Hassop Estate. This makes the start of corn milling on this site likely to be nearer to 1778. How successful was Calver Corn Mill? There is evidence that at least two millers may have been employed at any one time at the mill from 1801 until 1871 and also in 1891. Birth records and censuses list several families who were millers in Calver during these periods. If they all worked at the Calver Corn Mill it suggests that business was sufficient to support at least two families. From 1881 the miller combined this occupation with another such as farmer, draper or grocer. This concurs with the suggestion of Willies that “it was a marginal concern in the late 19th century”. Willies says that “Local verbal evidence suggests the mill finished work about the First World War – possibly it was earlier.” This is supported by evidence presented here from corn millers recorded in Calver around that period suggesting that milling ended in 1904. Explaining the unusual wheel construction Laffoley (6) suggests that some of the wheel machinery was more typical of cotton mills, in part because the power was taken from the inner rim of the wheel - “what happens when a cotton millwright gets his hands on a corn mill”. It may be James Woodhouse or Peter Richardson was responsible for this unusual mechanism. In 1879 James Woodhouse was manager of Calver Corn Mills Company, part of the Hassop Estate, who also owned the Cotton Mill and may have been instrumental in installing the unusual machinery. Alternatively Peter Richardson may have made the modifications. Formerly he was manager at the Calver cotton mill and he became a miller at Calver corn mill by 1883. Willies who surveyed the mill in 1987 believed that modifications were likely to have been made after the 1860s. This makes the 1883 date rather late, when milling appears to have been less profitable and possibly when the expense of modifications would be a poor investment. William Kitchen, the miller prior to Peter Richardson and working in the 1860s, did not have the same recorded connection to a Cotton Mill. Whatever the date of the modification there would have been experienced cotton mill wheelwrights to provide advice who were working nearby. Local reports suggest that the wheel construction was not stable.

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