Qualla: Masson Mill

Masson Mill: Introduction

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit John Sutton, CC BY-SA 2.0. By 1783, Richard Arkwright had something to prove. His first mill at Cromford had worked, his second mill had worked, and the cotton industry he had effectively invented was being copied from Lancashire to Saxony. So when he built his third spinning mill, on a stretch of the Derwent just two miles downstream from Cromford, he built it as a statement. Masson Mill was wider, taller, more architecturally confident than anything he had done before. The river was bigger here than at Cromford, the wheel could be bigger, the output could be greater. It was the moment Arkwright stopped experimenting and started showing off. Two and a half centuries later, the mill is still standing, still drawing power from the same river - now to generate electricity rather than to spin cotton - and visitors can shop inside it.

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Image: John Sutton | CC BY-SA 2.0

Masson Mill: The Third Time

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chris Allen, CC BY-SA 2.0. Arkwright's first mill at Cromford, opened in 1771, used the modest flow of the Bonsall Brook and the Cromford Sough. His second site followed soon after. Masson, completed in 1783, took advantage of the much greater volume of the River Derwent itself. The river meant a larger wh...

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Image: Chris Allen | CC BY-SA 2.0

Masson Mill: A Mill Built to Be Seen

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dadulinka, CC BY-SA 3.0. The original 1783 building was twenty-one bays long, five storeys high, brick built on a base of local gritstone, with stone window dressings and quoins picking out the geometry. Inside, the staircase and ancillary services were tucked into a central projection so that the produc...

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Image: Dadulinka | CC BY-SA 3.0

Masson Mill: Arkwright's House on the Hill

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stephen McKay, CC BY-SA 2.0. Across the river from Masson Mill stands Willersley Castle, the house Arkwright built for himself in the 1780s. The chimney smoke from the mill drifted past his drawing-room windows, and he could see his investment from his porch. He died in 1792 before the castle was fully finis...

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Image: Stephen McKay | CC BY-SA 2.0

Masson Mill: Power, Then and Now

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chris Allen, CC BY-SA 2.0. Waterwheels turned at Masson for one hundred and forty-five years. In 1928 they were finally replaced by turbines. In 1995, the turbines were upgraded with modern hydroelectric generators capable of producing 240 kilowatts, enough to power the building and feed surplus into the g...

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Image: Chris Allen | CC BY-SA 2.0

Masson Mill: What the Visitor Finds

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Roger Cornfoot, CC BY-SA 2.0. Masson Mill today is two things at once. On the lower floors it is a shopping village - a sprawl of independent retailers using the old workspaces, with a café and the inevitable gift shop. On the upper floors it is the Working Textile Museum, with original Arkwright-era equipmen...

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Image: Roger Cornfoot | CC BY-SA 2.0