YOULGRAVE

 

(sometimes called Youlgreave) This is the village where I stayed, in the George Hotel, which is a large friendly pub in the centre of the village, next to the beautiful All Saints’ Church, which dates from 1130.  It has an unusual Norman font, carved with a salamander, and a stained glass window made by William Morris to a design by Edward Burne-Jones.

The village actually has 3 pubs, 2 chapels and a church! I chose this village because it sits halfway between Matlock and Bakewell, roughly level with Chatsworth, so it's pretty central to the area I like most

The church has some impressive, almost friendly looking gargoyles all around the top of the tower

Youlgreave is one of very few villages in the UK to get most of its water supplies from a private water company, the Youlgreave Waterworks Ltd.  In 1829 the Youlgreave Friendly Society for Women funded a scheme to pipe water from a local spring into a conduit head in the village, which involved the laying of over 1,000 metres of pipes.  

Prior to this, water had to be brought up to the village from the River Bradford every day.  Not only was this an arduous task, but contaminated river water in the summer led to the deaths of many villagers, often children, every year.

The conduit head, known as the ‘Fountain’, was a huge circular tank that held 1,500 gallons of water.  It filled each night, and at 6.00am every day a village ‘Waterkeeper’ unlocked the tap and allowed the people of the village to collect their daily supplies.  This daily ritual of collecting water made the Fountain a necessary meeting place and focal point for the village, and a small market built up around the area in the 19th Century.  The Fountain was improved in 1869 and water fed to stand pipes throughout the village. 

The Fountain is still evident in the centre of Youlgreave, opposite the Bull’s Head pub.  Youlgreave Waterworks Ltd is still a successful, not-for-profit company. It extracts 22 million gallons of water every year and supplies 500 households and businesses in the village. Its board of 12 Directors do not receive fees or salaries, and it is run solely for the benefit of its members – each property supplied in the village.

 Youlgrave is one of the villages renowned for their annual well-dressing displays, and it is not just wells that are dressed, but pumps and more up-to-date sources of water.

the quaint Thimble Hall (c 1650), listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s smallest detached house.  Each room is less than 8 feet square and there is a fixed ladder up to the bedroom.  It was home to a family of eight people 100 years ago and was last inhabited in the 1930s. It has since been restored

The Youlgrave Co-operative Society was formed in 1870, operating from this elegant, three-storey stone building.  The building housed various departments on its upper floors, with storage below.  The Co-operative Society supplied electricity to the village from 1910 until the electricity industry was nationalised. . Although now a Youth Hostel, the gold leaf labelling on the window still exists, and the magnificence of the building points to the former wealth of this village