Peak Experience

If you’re looking for an action-packed and enjoyable adventure into our industrial past, the Churnet Valley has plenty to offer the whole family.  Apart from exploring its unique industrial heritage you can ride on canal boats and steam trains and investigate working water mills.

 

The Churnet Valley was once a great centre of industry.  Thomas Bolton’s copper works near Oakamoor was established in the 1800s and is still in operation.  In 1856, it used the power of the River Churnet to draw the wire for the first Atlantic cable.

 

Ironstone was quarried near Consall Forge to produce ‘English porcelain’, a durable porcelain substitute.  Local limestone and copper were exploited here too.

 

Brindley built the Caldon Canal alongside part of the River Churnet and connected Froghall with Stoke.  Josiah Wedgewood was a driving force behind the canal.  The relatively smooth water transport enabled him to move his fragile pottery around more safely than by railway or tram.

 

The canal brought limestone from Caldon Low quarries to be burned in the massive kilns at Froghall.  The Froghall kilns are now restored and are open to visitors.  Froghall Station, rebuilt in traditional style, houses a welcoming tearoom and offers train rides to Cheddleton.  Why not try the local speciality oatcakes?

 

Victorian visitors to Consall Forge saw mills, tramways, ironstone mines and quarries.  Today you have to look hard at this picturesque valley to find clues of its industrial past.

 

Cheddleton Flint Mill, northwest of Froghall on the way to Leek, is still in operation.  The mill may have been built to grind corn in the late 1600s.  But in the late 1700s, it was converted to grind flint for the pottery industry.  Click here to download the Peak Experience self-guided trail around Cheddleton. 

 

The River Churnet’s pure waters were prized by silk dyers such as Thomas Wardle.  His passion for Indian silks helped inspire the great Victorian designer and leading light of the arts and crafts movement, William Morris, to innovate new and subtle colourings.

 

Silk thread was a Leek speciality.  Elizabeth Wardle, wife of Thomas, founded the Leek Embroidery Society.  Their work gave the town a reputation for exquisite and innovative church embroidery.  Visit Leek’s churches to discover their embroidery on display.

 

The River Churnet’s waters powered James Brindley’s mill in Leek, among many others.  You can still see how Brindley’s mill machinery operates and there is a small museum relating the life and times of its builder.

 

There is a Churnet Valley guidebook available from Leek tourist information centre.