The 'Lost' Industries of Gradbach and Quarnford

Dublin

Below on the right is the River Dane. On the opposite side of the river bank, hidden by the vegetation, are the ruins of a row of mill worker's cottages named 'Dublin'. The cottages are named after the linen workers who came from Ireland to work in Gradbach Mill when it started to produce linen in the early 19th century. At this time Ireland was famous for its linen. It may be that these workers arrived before the 'Great Famine' began in 1845.

Continue down the driveway towards Gradbach Mill.

Stables

On your left were the stables. They are depicted on the 1878 OS Map, but there is no sign of them now on the ground except for patches of nettles. Nettles are a sign of disturbed ground and occupation by people and animals. The packhorses bringing raw materials to the mill and taking finished products away would have been stabled here.

Continue down the driveway for a few metres.

Trough

On the left is a fine trough with seats on either side for the weary to rest. This water supply was essential for the packhorses who carried the raw material to the mill.

Continue for a little way...

Old Mill Race

On the right is the blocked off access track to the mill race or leat. This would have brought water from the River Dane via the millpond to turn the waterwheel at the mill.

Some years ago when the mill was a Youth Hostel, the manager cleared the whole area and it was possible to look all the way down the mill race to the mill pond. It is now overgrown again, but you can still make out the line of the mill race.

Continue down to the main mill building.

Gradbach Mill

Although there are reports of a mill here as far back as 1640 and tales of it or its successor burning down in 1785, the first definite evidence comes from 1792. This is in the form of a lease from Sir Henry Harpur (of Calke Abbey) to Thomas Oliver-Longs, James Oliver and Thomas White. The lease specifically refers to the building of a mill, which is the one that can be seen today.

The mill was built to spin cotton, wool and silk. Water was brought along the leat or mill race (see 5) to the water wheel, housed at the end of the mill building. The water wheel was 24 feet in diameter and overshot. It was enlarged to 38 feet sometime in 1850. Water was returned to the river some distance downstream by an underground mill race. At one time, possibly when the wheel was increased in size, the water backed up, and the river bed had to be 'scoured' to deepen it.

The mill changed hands in 1794 and then again in 1798, after which the Dakeyne family took over. They turned to spinning flax to make linen and did very well for themselves. In 1838, they employed 64 people, which would have included the Irish linen workers living in Dublin Cottages (see 2).

From 1850-1860 the mill was spinning waste silk, but from 1861-1868 it was in decline. This was linked to the arrival of the steam engine, which meant mills no longer needed to be right next to rivers - although they would have still needed a water supply. By 1872, the mill was vacant. It had been spinning for just 80 years.

In 1887, the Harpur Crewe Estate took the mill in hand and turned it into a saw mill. However, by 1900 it was just a barn.

In the 1930s, the Sigley family farmed here (see photos). Cyril Sigley the head of the family at this time, was quite enterprising and, as well as dairy farming, he grew watercress. There are a number of freshwater springs emerging in the vicinity, and around these he cut channels in which the plants could grow. He used ride his tricycle and cart to take the watercress to Macclesfield and Buxton, where he sold it for 6d a bunch.

It remained as such to one extent or another until 1978 when the Youth Hostelling Association (YHA) bought it. It was hostel until the 2013 when it was bought by Newcastle-under-Lyme College of Further Education who turned it into the luxury accomodation and conference centre it is today.

Continue to the other side of the low wall in front of the mill by the picnic tables.

Boundary Marker

This cast iron boundary marker marks the boundary between the counties of Staffordshire and Cheshire. Not far away to the northwest is Three Shires Head where these two counties are met by a third, the county of Derbyshire, hence its name.

The Doctor's Surgery

This house was orginally the mill manager's house, then a farmhouse. At some point, the extension at the side was the doctor's surgery. There was a stone bench outside on which patients would have to wait to see the doctor (see photo). Hopefully, they were wrapped up warmly in winter, so their ailments did not get any worse!

Head for some steps and the footpath at the back of the house. Carry on along the narrow path towards Castor's Bridge.

Castor's Bridge

Go through the stile and look down at the footpath before reaching Castor's Bridge

If you closely, you will be able to see slag in the footpath (see photo). This is the waste material from iron smelting. The grass covered mounds nearby are all made of this waste material mixed with charcoal (see photo).

This is the site of a smelting site or 'bloomery', possibly dating back to the 16th century, where iron ore was heated in a furnace using charcoal and hand bellows. See diagram, which shows how one of these furnaces may have looked.

A well respected scholar of Old English, Ralph Elliot, while teaching at Keele University in 1959, researched sir Gawain and the Green Knight. He postulates that the monks of Dieulacres (Dieu La Cresse) Abbey in Leek were the first to exploit the potential of the Castor's Bridge site. The monks would have regularly passed this way when visiting their grange and lands at Swythamley.

The slag is on the footpath because sometime in the 1870s Matthew Downs from Gradbach Farm used slag from the mounds to repair the footpaths around the bridge. We know about this because Walter Smith, a well known antiquarian from Macclesfield, interviewed Mr Downs in 1935 and wrote an article for the Macclesfield Times. Matthew Downs was then an old man, but he recalled how he had repaired the footpaths with 'tons of the stuff' when he was a young man.

The present bridge replaced the original stone packhorse bridge many years ago (see photo).

Cross the bridge and follow the Black Brook for a short distance to a ford. Do not cross the ford, but take the path going uphill through the woods. You are on the trail for evidence for the production of charcoal to burn in the iron smelting furnaces...

Charcoal Burning Platforms

After around 10 minutes walking up the hill, you should be able to make out in a few places semi-circular flattish areas on the right of the path.

These are all that remain of charcoal burning platforms (see photos).

Charcoal is produced by slowly roasting wood with the exclusion of air. A level platform around 12-16 feet in diameter is first constructed and dug down 18 inches. Lengths of wood 3-4 feet long are stacked around a central post. Any wood thicker than 6 inches is split (see diagram). Waste vegetation is spread over the outside of the kiln to support an earth covering, which is spread over the kiln to exclude the air. To light the kiln, hot cinders are shovelled through a central hole, and when the skilled charcoal burner sees that the smoke coming from the opening is the right colour, the top is sealed. The process would take several days, the whole family taking it in turns to tend the kilns night and day. Several kilns would have been on the go at any one time. If the wood accidently burned due to too much air entering the kiln, the whole batch would be lost and the process had to start all over.

Once completed, water was poured into the top and the kiln left for 1-3 days to cool. The resultant charcoal was then loaded onto packhorses and taken a short distance to the bloomery at Castor's Bridge. Ten tons of wood produced two and half tons of charcoal.

Entire families would travel the country and spend time burning charcoal wherever they could find the work (see photo). Beech oak, hornbeam, hazel and ash were the best trees to coppice for charcoal. The wood was cut during the winter months and dried in 'windrows' for six months, the burning taking place from April to November.

There are still some examples of coppiced trees on the opposite bank of the Black Brook (see photo), but the Swythamley Estate replanted most of the Gradbach side with conifers in the 19th century.

Return to and cross Castor's Bridge, go through the stile and follow the sign to the Scout Camp. Stop half way across the field.

Field Boundaries and Tenterhooks

Look across the valley to your left and notice the field above Gradbach Mill where there are several walled enclosures (see photo). This is where cloth woven at the mill was stretched on frames using hooks called tenterhooks (see images).

Closer by you can see the remains of field boundaries (see photo). These are fossilised medieval strip fields. During the medieval period open fields were divided into strips for families to farm. When some of these fields were later enclosed, walls were built along these original divisions, some of which survive today.

Gradbach Scout Camp

These old farm buildings are now part of Gradbach Scout Camp, owned by High Peak Scouts.

If you look closely at the main house, you can read its history through all the changes that have been made to the building. Doors and windows have been blocked or inserted and additions made.

Notice also the opening high up on the wall of the building on your left as you enter the yard. This building was a poultigerry, used to house poultry above and pigs below on the ground floor. The hens would walk up a sloping board to their resting place each evening.

It is a good spot to build a farm as there a many natural springs here.

Above the buildings take the higher minor road and follow it down to your left to the bottom of the hill. Fork right along the minor road for approximately 20m then bear right up the track to Greensitch Farm. Over the cattle grid follow the track and, just before the farm gate, head right for a footbridge over the stream. Cross the footbridge with the farm on your left and then through a gap in the wall. Go though a gate on the left towards another gate heading east all the time and find a wicket gate in the corner of the field. Pass through this and continue walking in the same direction with the wall on your right for 15m until you reach the wall corner. Head across open pasture for a finger post ahead of you in the middle of a wall. Cross over the stile. Notice the upcast mounds in the field.

Sough and Goldsitch Colliery

Goldsitch Moss Colliery covers around two square kilometres and lies to your right about 1km away. There is documentation from the Alstonefield Court Manor Rolls stating that it was mined as long ago as 1401 when "Thomas Smith takes from the Lords a certain vein of coal at Blackbrok for one year beginning last Michaelmas for his own use paying 12 pence per annum to be paid by Richard Strongarme for two coal mines". This very early mine may have been opencast.

The mines were always troubled by flooding, so in order to exploit deeper coal at the northern end of the colliery, it became necessary to drive a major sough to drain the colliery. During its journey underground the water from the mine collects a mixture of clay and dissolved iron. This metal oxidises and turns bright orange upon contact with the air, leading to a spectacular build up of orange iron oxide where it flows into the stream.

The course of the underground sough can be followed by locating the upcast mounds in the field, where spoil from underground has been deposited (see photos). The miners would have begun digging the sough above the water level of the Gold Sytch stream leaving the spoil behind them. When this was no longer possible an air shaft was sunk to join the sough and the spoil lifted out. The miners were sufficiently skilled in survey methods to do this. The shafts were lined with stone (see photo). The first shaft is small as there was not a great deal of spoil. Further up the pasture there is a very large mound with a field wall built across it, demonstrating the considerable depth of the sough below ground. Another upcast shaft can be located on private land behind Sniddles Head Farm.

Follow the footpath towards a small building. Look for a finger post by a stile just beyond the building and exit onto the road.

Bradley Howell

The road was turnpiked in 1773 and the small building was a toll house where tolls were collected. Notice the blocked door (see photo). Turnpike roads were built and managed by turnpike trusts to ease the movement of people and goods such as coal and lime over difficult terrain. A levy was charged on travellers using them which went on their upkeep.

Walk down the road across the bridge to the T-junction.

Toll Bridge Cottage

Ahead of you is Toll Bridge Cottage, a toll house dating from 1842. It is now a private dwelling. This toll house was built to replace that at Bradley Howell.

Turn left and walk down the road a short way.

Gradbach Limekiln

This limekiln, belonging to Manor Farm, was consolidated in 2021 by the South West Peak Landscape Partnership with a generous grant from the Association of Industrial Archaeology. It has been adopted by the High Peak Scouts who will monitor it and look after it into the future.

It was built at the end of the 18th or begining of the 19th century, probably instigated by the Harpur Crewe Family who owned much land in the area including the coalmines on Goldsitch Moss. At this time much of the land was being enclosed and improved. To help this process, lime would be spread thickly on the fields to burn off heathland vegetation and later used more sparingly to 'sweeten' the soil. Lime from this limekiln could also have been used to make mortar, plaster and and limewash. The farmhouse at Manor Farm has been painted with lime plaster coloured by the ochre coming from the sough (see 17).

Continue down the road and fork left, taking the road to Gradbach Mill. Stop opposite the entrance to Manor Farm.

Ochre Settling Tanks

On your left you will be able to see the Gold Sytch stream running down the hillside. You can clearly see the ochre that it is bringing with it, colouring the water orange. You can see the difference where it joins the clear waters of the lower stream, a tributary of the River Dane.

On the opposite side of the river, you should be able to see the remains of walls. These were settling tanks for ochre. The water from the Gold Sytch stream was once diverted through these tanks, where a series of sluices would have enabled the water to flow slowly, depositing the ochre before exiting further downstream. The ochre was then dried, creating a fine orange powder that would have been sold as a dye. It was this that was mixed with the lime plaster that was used to paint the farmhouse at Manor Farm.

Continue down the road towards Gradbach Mill. After the road bends and you cross over a bridge, take a footpath through the wall towards the car park. Where the stream joins the river Dane stop.

A weir?

If you looked closely, you can see where the river you have been following has been 'canalised', just where it starts to join the River Dane (see photo). If you look even more closely you should be able to see the remains of wooden posts sticking out of the water (see photo).

These look like they are the remains of some kind of mechanism for controlling the flow of water, perhaps for the forge that once stood on the site of the carpark (see 1).

Continue along the footpath until you reach the carpark where you started.