Originally New Mills district was in the Royal Forest of the Peak
and was part of an area called Bowden Middlecale. It was made up
of ten hamlets and four of these - Beard, Ollersett, Thornsett and
Whitle - gradually became linked to form the area now known as New
Mills. The town takes its name from a medieval corn mill called
Beard Mill which was located near the site of the present Salem
Mill.
In 1991, 600 local school children planted 600 oak saplings to commemorate
the first known mention of the “New Mills” in 1391.
By the late sixteenth century the name New Mill was in use as a
place name for the immediate vicinity of the mill and evolved to
New Mills in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
The district was characterised by small farms whose farmers often
pursued other occupations in addition to agriculture, and this rural
dimension remained a characteristic of the town until well into
the twentieth century. By the 1890s and 1900s the centre of New
Mills had developed the physical shape which it largely retains
to this day. It had its own music hall, one of the earliest cinemas
in the country and a busy shopping centre which made the town a
focal point for people from surrounding districts during the interwar
years.
New Mills was once a ‘stronghold’ of Methodism, but
there was a significant Anglican community and Catholic population
and a Congregational Church. The first Co-operative Society in North-West
Derbyshire was established in New Mills in 1860 and the Co-op played
a significant part in local life until the 1950s. The main employment
was in textiles, but the railways brought newcomers to the town
as did printing and engraving.
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