Uttoxeter Online Magazine

The world of the Churnet from its origin high on the bleak moorlands to its confluence with the Dove at Rocester, taking in the scenery, the history, the legends and the people.

Written by Alan Gibson, the well known local author, first published in 2005. £9.95 from our online bookshop. Contact our This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it for more details.

A brief extract follows :

The towns and villages along the course of the Churnet, from its source near Flash to its confluence with the Dove beyond Rocester, owe their settlement and their livelihoods to the river. The river provided not only water, it supplied the power and the drain for the industries that grew up along its relatively short course. From the dyeing and silk mills of Leekfrith and Leek, to the paper and flint mills of Cheddleton, to the metalworking of Froghall and Oakamoor, back to the cotton mills of Rocester, the river worked very hard through hundreds of years. Now increasingly it is returning to nature and the valley becomes more and more simply a place to live in or visit as the manufacturing age passes it by.

The source of the Churnet, if we simply start at its highest point, is just beyond Bareleg Hill, a few yards away from the junction of the Longnor and Buxton roads near the Royal Cottage and Flash. Less than a mile away another spring eases its way out of the peat at Strines, just above Merryton Low. The two merge above Upper Hulme and form the river that has played such an Important part in the prosperity of the towns and villages of the Churnet Valley.

This high area has always been a hard place to live, with isolated farms or tiny hamlets eking out a living, keeping a few livestock and perhaps growing sets for their daily bread. Button-making, packhorses, small scale quarrying aid mining were the main sources of money. There were few proper roads before the end of the 18th century, only winding paths or packhorse tracks.

The Industrial Revolution had a devastating effect on the Churnet. The river, in the 17th century, would have been as clean and pretty as the Coombes Brook. Grayling and trout would have graced its swift flowing waters. But nature, in a perverse way, was responsible for the working class nature of the riverside populations. The population benefited from the geological turmoil that had occurred long before the ice ages that formed the valleys. The flora and fauna that now make our valley so attractive, flourishes on the very minerals that generations worked hard to extract, and the fast flowing streams were an obvious source of power from the earliest days.

The geological layering is far from even in the area. Layers of ore can be found just below the surface, before disappearing to a depth that requires pit shafts and expertise. The Churnet Valley, especially in the areas around Consall and Oakamoor are rich in deposits of iron ore, copper, limestone and coal, ......