Sir Richard Arkwright’s showpiece Masson Mills was built in 1783 in Matlock Bath, Derbyshire, and is the finest surviving and best preserved example of an Arkwright cotton mill. It is a working textile museum illustrating Richard Arkwright legacy and the shopping village is superb, with a restaurant, on-site parking facilities and a great venue for conferences.
The mill has a fascinating collection of authentic historic textile machinery in the working textile museum, which dates from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. In 2010, the collection was prestigiously described as “possibly the UK’s finest collection of working textile machines.” It includes machinery originally from Masson Mills, along with a large collection of other items and artefacts from textile mills from all over Britain.
Visitors to the museum can experience the genuine atmosphere of what life was like working in an 18th-century cotton mill in the original 1783 mill. It’s possible to experience the sights, smells and sounds which are both authentic and evocative. Visitors are invited to ‘clock in’ with their entrance tickets and can step back in time when they enter the mill and see and appreciate Sir Richard Arkwright’s legacy of over 200 years of industrial history. The collection includes many items, including the original 1785 bell, which called the employees to work, some of the oldest working looms in the world which still produce cloth, the largest bobbin collection in the world, as well as all the officers, the boilers and boiler house and the mechanics shop in the ground floor.
The award-winning shopping village employs over 70 staff, and opened in 1999. It has a unique atmosphere alongside the museum and conference centre and welcomes nearly 400,000 visitors a year and boasts to be a shopping location like no other.
It has over 60 different retail concepts set out over five floors, which are all under one roof, with designer clothes, beer, whiskey and food shops, jewellery, lingerie, golf and gifts, there is also ladies and men’s clothing from the Edinburgh Woollen Mill and so much more. It is classed as ‘city centre shopping without the city,’ and it adjoins the working textile museum.
After a morning’s shopping or an afternoon visit to the Textile Museum, why not take time out to treat yourself in the Derwent restaurant? With over 150 seats, the licensed self-service restaurant enjoys stunning views over the River Derwent and offers a very comprehensive menu of hot and cold meals available all day. There is Costa coffee and home-baked cakes or scones with a different special on every day and a favourite filling available in the oven baked jacket potatoes, home-made Panini’s or plated sandwiches. The locally famous Tea for Two, offers a three tiered cake stand with a selection of freshly made sandwiches with salad, freshly baked scones with jam and cream, cupcakes and tea or filtered coffee. If you can’t finish it, you can even take it home!
There is convenient on-site car parking for 200 cars with direct access into the shopping village. There is also designated coach parking on site and disabled access.
Masson Mills shopping village, Matlock Bath is open daily except Christmas Day and Easter Sunday, Monday to Saturday 10 AM to 5:30 PM, Sunday 11 AM to 5 PM.