first factory in 1771. His water-powered frame allowed unskilled workers in his factory to produce great volumes of material. He organised their labour on a scale previously unheard of. Today, Arkwright’s achievements are celebrated in the Derwent Valley World Heritage Site, which links a series of very early industrial mills in the broad wooded valley of the River Derwent. John Smedley’s Lea Mill remains today the world’s longest continuously occupied factory and its fine knitwear continues to be exported overseas. Under the limestone landscape of the Peak District are huge caves and voids. Writing as Dr James Hardcastle in The Terror of Blue John Gap in 1910, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle said of this landscape ‘Strike it with some gigantic hammer it would boom like a drum’. The caverns resulted from the action of water dissolving
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limestone to create vast voids within which are found one of Britain’s most elegant gemstones. Under the triangular hill of Treak Cliff, the rare mineral Blue John is mined today as it has been for millennia. The distinctive blue and yellow calcium fluoride crystallised in veins on the walls of the labyrinthine crevices 300 million years ago from hot saline originating in the earth’s mantle. Blue John, like other distinctive British gemstones such as Whitby Jet and Cairngorm, is mined in tiny quantities and is helping the British jewellery industry regain its place on the world stage. Chris Sellors’ Derbyshire family business has survived the globalisation of jewellery manufacture by making distinctive British gemstones using craft techniques. The gemstones are finished by Chris’ skilled team as quality jewellery much in demand in UK export markets.
the peak district in autumn and winter - 5