Perched on the doorstep to The Peak District, New Mills in Derbyshire is a small town surrounded by deep hills and and countryside. With a strong industrial heritage and a backdrop of rolling peaks and valleys, New Mills Derbyshire makes for a pretty place with a lot to see:
The first mill to be built in New Mills was a corn mill erected in 1391, shifting the area’s focus of industry from agriculture to production. The name, formerly Bowden Middlecale, changed to New Mills as cotton mills and print works sprung up over the preceding centuries. Today, the mills that populated the town have closed down and have been repurposed. Torr Vale Mill may be the most distinctive mill of the town thanks to its immediate location next to New Mills Central railway station, where the smoke stack towers over the adjacent The Torrs.
The Torrs is New Mills’ best asset, located immediately next to the main shopping and residential area of the town, the area encompasses the Torrs Riverside Park, a 90km-square area featuring a sandstone gorge cut through by two merging rivers’ the River Sett and the River Goyt. The park features a half mile trial taking walkers under canopied woodlands, over stone bridges, past the Hydro Torrs – a hydroelectric wheel generating electricity for the nearby supermarket and the national grid, and over the Millennium Walkway, a 160m-long cantilevered walkway, suspended over the river Goyt, which connects up with the Mid Shires Way, allowing for an unbroken 275-mile walking trail.
The town is peppered with various independent shops, cafes and pubs, all in walking distance to The Torrs and the main railway station. New Mills is served by two train stations and the A6, connecting the area to the nearby city of Manchester and the Peak District National Park.
Read more about things to see and do in New Mills by visiting their tourist website here.
See more delightful towns and villages by browsing the Pretty Places tag, including nearby places such as Buxton, Prestbury, and Styal. It is also a 15 minute drive from the National Trust property Lyme Hall.