Thanks to funding from Historic England we are running a community project called Holbrook’s Hidden Heritage in partnership with Holbrook Community Society and Holbrook Church of England Primary School. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the village community were employed in a range of working-class trades, as agricultural labourers, miners or as stocking frame knitters. In 1845 there were 54 stocking-frame workshops in the village with 152 frames operated by 146 workers, who had the materials for their livelihood supplied by the nearby cotton mills at Milford and Belper. Today there are only two listed stocking-frame knitters’ workshops in the village, but evidence for more in the fabric of the other historic buildings in the area.
We want to investigate the histories of the houses, streets and landscape of Holbrook through the use of documentary evidence and analysis of historic buildings within the village. The links between the history of the village and the nearby World Heritage Site will be explored to reveal the untold story of how villages like Holbrook contributed to the rise of the cotton industry in Derbyshire.
If you’d like to be involved in the project, or want to share the history of your house or your family within Holbrook, come and join us at one of our open events. The first event takes place on 8th December at 7:30pm in The Spotted Cow, or you can email info@MSDSHeritage.co.uk to be added to our mailing list.
