DHBT Vice Chair, Barry Joyce, led a group visit to Oakhill and The Vicarage, Cromford yesterday afternoon.
The house which came to be called ‘The Vicarage’ was built by Richard Arkwright II to provide the Revd Robert Morgan Jones, perpetual curate and minister of the Arkwright built chapel in Cromford, with an appropriate dwelling following his marriage in 1841.
The earliest definite fact known about Oakhill is that in 1847 William Melville, a cotton spinner and cotton merchant from Nottingham, died there.
It would seem that by the mid-1830s Melville was tenant of Masson Mill and Cromford Mill. It seems likely that he moved to Oakhill in 1841 or 1842 and that the house was built for him.
Find out more about these two Grade II listed buildings by reading Barry’s research paper.
Oakhill is now a hotel, bar and events venue, which also opens for lunch, afternoon tea and dinner and The Vicarage is in private ownership.
