Jedediah Strutt

The man who transformed Milford from a tiny hamlet to an important industrial centre was Jedediah Strutt. Using the power of the River Derwent to drive the machinery he built his first cotton mill, the South Mill, at Belper in 1776. Milford was chosen as the second site for a mill four years later. Jedediah was a strict disciplinarian. His employees were fined heavily for lateness or bad behaviour. He insisted on them going to a place of worship on Sundays and that the children attended school regularly. He built houses, a school, and a chapel. Model farms were established at Belper and Moscow Farm at Milford. The food produced was then sold to employees at a reasonable cost with credit facilities available. Many other amenities were provided, described by one local historian as “a sort of Welfare State, 150 years before anything like it arrived on a national scale”.

Village Layout

The village remains almost intact and was designated a conservation area in 1976. It is best seen if you ascend Sunny Hill or Shaw’s Lane on the opposite side of the river. You can then see how narrow the valley is, and study the layout of the village. On Hopping Hill, the houses comprising the East and West Terraces, are Strutt houses. The terraces are unusual, in that to allow for the steeply sloping site, the east side is two storeys high and the west three. So that all the dwellings had the same accommodation there are three east houses to every two west, even though they are back to back.