Tansley Mills and Ponds

Tansley Mills and Ponds are a small collection of Georgian industrial units, located in the village of Tansley, Derbyshire.

Out of the three mill ponds in the valley, the lowest one , known as the middle pond, is the biggest and now used as a fishing location. It was built to power Scholes cotton mill. The water in Tansley contains very little lime as it had flows over acidic rock. It made it suitable for treating cotton. The pond is fed by two brooks, Knabhall brook and Oaksedge brook, tributaries to the river Derwent. The brook joins another one just below Scholes Mill. It joins Bentley Brook in Lumsdale. Bentley Brook, in turn, joins the Derwent at Matlock Green. A pipe carried water into Scholes mill from the pond to power the water wheel.

The pond is stone lined and was at least 15ft deep but today it is only 3ft deep. In the late 1950's the pond was dredged and a excavator got stuck in the silt.

In the late 18th century, Scholes Mill was built for producing cotton smallware, with a manager's house built onto the mill soon after the original construction. Further additions occurred when the mill was converted to steam power, as the area which housed the water wheel became the boiler house. It is though these extensions took place before 1846 due to evidence from the Tansley Tithe Map printed in 1846, the mill as having a similar ground plan to that which can be seen today. In the 1940's the Army occupied the mill and made some additions to the structure but by 1952 the mill was derelict and mainly used for storage.

During the excavation of a lift shaft pit at the derelict Scholes Mill site, the intact wheel-pit and tail race of the former mill was revealed. This was drawn and photographed. Rotational scarring visible on the walls of the wheel-pit indicated that the wheel had been approximately 12m in diameter.

A pre-conversion archaeological building recording at Scholes Mill in 2010 showed that the mill manager's house pre-dates the main mill structure and that there may have been an earlier mill structure dating from the late 18th century. The present mill range was added later, around the early to mid 19th century, incorporating part of the original building of the Manager's House on the east.

Today, Scholes Mill is a beautiful Grade II Listed Building, restored and converted recently by Wardmans Ltd. of Tansley to form 4 floors of office accommodation.

The other mill, known as Speedwell Mill, made red tape.