NEW MILLS

 New Mills dates back to the 14th century, when the corn mills known as the ‘New Milne’ were built. New Mills was first noted for coal mining, then for cotton spinning, bleaching and calico printing. It was served by the Peak Forest Canal, three railway lines and the A6 trunk road. Redundant mills were bought up in the mid-twentieth century by sweet manufacturer Swizzels Matlow.

The town itself is nothing out of the ordinary, although pretty enough, but the Torrs Riverside park and the Millennium Walkway are something else!

The Torrs Riverside Park, deep below the town was, until the opening of the aerial walkway, divided by an impasse between the historic Torr Vale Mill and the equally imposing railway retaining wall. Dramatically described by The Guardian as the last inaccessible place in England. The aerial Walkway provided an innovative and futuristic solution to this age old problem of access. Described as ’a steel spiders web,' the walkway clings to the vertical gritstone rock face and spans the enormous railway retaining wall, cantilevered out over the River Goyt.

Completed in 1999, the walkway provides a link in Europe's premier walking route, E2 which passes through New Mills on its way from Stranraer in Scotland, via Dover, to Nice in France.