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The Torrs Riverside Park, New Mills -The Park Under The Town
The History of the Torrs
The Torrs gorges were created during the ice age when ice occupied the Goyt and Sett river valleys. Meltwater from the ice cut 94 feet (29m) through the Woodhead Hill rock, a hard sandstone.
Over two hundred years ago, the inventions of Arkwright and his contemporaries led to the transfer of cottage based cotton spinning to mills driven by water power. Despite difficult access, the Torrs gorge was particularly suitable for mill development with good sites to build on rocky terraces giving some protection from flooding. Weirs were constructed to create a head of water for power production and the soft water suited the industrial needs. Later, steam engines were installed, taking advantage of several small coal pits along the valley sides.
Most of the riverside mills were abandoned a century ago but evidence of the early industrial revolution community, such as mill ruins, weirs, aqueducts, chimneys, cobbled tracks and arched bridges, still remain. One mill, Torr Vale, which had better access, remains today, although textile manufacturing ended in 2000 after 210 continuous years, the longest of any mill in the country. Today, new uses are being sought for the Grade II* listed historic mill buildings.
Later mills, using steam power, then electricity, were built. However the name New Mills has its origins over 600 years ago with a corn mill known as the New Mylne first recorded in 1391.
The Park Under the Town
In the 19th century, the town of New Mills expanded on top of the Torrs gorge with some magnificent Victorian bridges built at high level crossing points, notably the 1884 four arch Union Road viaduct, towering 94 feet (29m) above the river Goyt, and built of stone quarried from the cliff face of the gorge itself.
When the mills closed, the original valley routes into the Torrs were abandoned and became impassable until being reopened to the public in 1974. They link to the Sett Valley Trial to Hayfield, opened a couple of years later on the route of the former railway line and, via a new footbridge built in 1984, to the footpath network on the upstream river Goyt.
Downstream of the Torrs gorge, formerseage works, landfill site and gas works were reclaimed for recreational use in the 1980s and 90s with extensive tree planting and path creation. The 1990s also saw the hitherto polluted river Goyt cleaned up and a riverside scrapyard closed in the early 2000s.
The Millennium Walkway
Until the Millennium, river level access was not possible downstream from the Torrs gorge as the Goyt squeezed between Torr Vale Mill and the Victorian retaining wall carrying the Manchester/New Mills/Sheffield railway line. Walkers had to climb out of the valley to street level and the extensive reclamation work down river had increased the pressure to provide a link at river level into the Torrs gorge.
Responding, Derbyshire County Council proposed a spectacular 525 (160m) long walkway, part attached to the retaining wall, part on pillars in the river, as a millennium project funded from the national lottery and other private and public contributors. Opened in December, 1999, the £550,000 walkway won numerous awards for its stunning design, including the overall winner of the 2000 British Construction Industries Best Small Project Award, and featured on national BBC1 TV as an example of excellence from the lottery funding. The project was also featured on a post office stamp marking the millennium.
The Riverside Park Today
Much of the 2km of the Goyt valley from where the river enters the parish of New Mills from the south at Goytside to leaving at Hague Bar to the west is now in the ownership of the Town and County Councils and managed as the Torrs Riverside Park. Running throughout it's length is part of the Midshires (Goyt) way, a 225 mile (360 km) trial from the Transpenine Trial at Stockport to the Ridgeway in Buckinghamshire, which was opened in 1994 by the late Benny Rothman, the leader of the 1932 Kinder Trespassers.
The Riverside Park is equally popular with walkers enjoying a short stroll away from the noise of traffic high above at road level and those using its network of paths to reach more distant destinations. The rich industrial archaeology, Victorian bridges and the Millennium Walkway draw visitors to the Torrs gorge where experienced climbers have also designated a dozen routed up the hard sandstone face. Club angling for game fish is available at various points along the rivers.
To the south, the Local Nature Reserve at Goytside Meadows, which lies between the river and the Peak Forest Canal, is managed as traditional pasture and meadow with grazing cattle and sheep. The reserve gives access to flower-rich grassland, the most threatened habitat both nationally and locally which is best visited between April and October.
To the west of the gorge, the Riverside Park offers a number of walking routes, including through the woodland created on the former landfill site where Derbyshire Countryside Rangers are managing the area for wildlife with regular bird ringing sessions open to the public. Besides woodland birds the river is a regular haunt of dippers and a small pond often attracts Kingfishers. Avenues of young oak trees line some of the paths as local schoolchildren planed 600 of them in 1991, commemorating the reported origins of New Mills 600 years earlier. At the western end of the park at Hague Bar, there is a small car park, picnic site and children's play area.
Access and Information
There are numerous access points signed into the Park from local roads and paths including from the bus station, Central rail station and Torr Top town centre car park. A reasonably level track, accessible from cars parked at the bottom of Station Road below Central station, leads to the Millennium Walkway and the Torrs gorge.
A very popular circular route for walkers follows the Midshires (Goyt) way through the Riverside Park, returning via the Peak Forest Canal towpath.
New Mills Heritage and Information Centre, adjacent to the bus station, on Rock Mill Lane, on of the main access routes into the Torrs, can provide further information. It was opened in 1988 by the broadcaster, the late Brian Redhead, who described new mills as “a town everyone should visit, though not all at once. It is a unique blend of natural history. It is the town with 'The Park Under The Town'.”
The Centre offers numerous publications including a free leaflet about Goytside Meadows Local Nature Reserve and other suggested walking routes. For further information about the Heritage Centre call 01663 746904 or click on www.newmillsheritage.com. For further reading try “The park under the town, The making of the Torrs Riverside Park, New Mills”, by Martin Doughty, Derbyshire CC, £2.99
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