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Crich
The village of Crich can be found high in the rolling Derbyshire hills five miles south-east of Matlock, where the White Peak extends a thin finger of carboniferous limestone into the gritstone country east of the wooded Derwent Valley. The village sits on the route of an old ridgeway which runs north from the Trent Basin and on up into Yorkshire and is the 'Gateway to the Peak District'.
The familiar landmark of Crich Stand rises from the highest point of the limestone outcrop known as Crich Cliff, whose massive white face looks westward and can be seen by travellers as far away as the A6 between Cromford and Ambergate. The lighthouse-like monument is itself visible from five counties, and on a clear day Lincoln Cathedral can be seen from it’s base. This is a popular region for Peak District Climbing and is enjoyed by thousands of climbers throughout the year.
Business in Crich reached a peak during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when Crich was caught up in the Industrial Revolution and railways and knitting machines were added to the lead-mining, quarrying, smelting, lime burning and farming which had previously occupied the increasingly growing population. By 1851 lead mining had declined and the census for that year shows only 23 lead miners in the village, although the Wakebridge, Old End and Jingler mines were worked until the 1950’s. Employment in 1851 was focussed mainly on quarrying and frame-knitting, with 85 quarry workers and 5 lime-burners in the parish, along with 270 people working mainly at home engaged as stockingers. Limestone extraction was under way from two quarries by 1734 and was carted away by packhorse trains until the Butterley Company built a narrow-guage railway from Crich to the lime kilns beside the Cromford Canal at Bull Bridge over a mile away in 1792. The wagons ran downhill by gravity and were hauled back up by teams of horses until steam traction was introduced in 1860.
Today the biggest industry in Crich is tourism, and there are many different attractions and things to do for tourists in the area. Like all Derbyshire villages Crich is best explored on foot, and there is so much here of interest and fascination to the visitor. Crich Stand must be the most conspicuous war memorial in the land rising 63 feet from it’s base to reach a height of 1,018 feet above sea-level.
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