Building record MDR8955 - 20-24 Derby Road, Belper

Cottages shown on a map of 1805, updated to 1818. The central cottage juts out into the roadway, with a gate extending across the road. (1) The central cottage was built as a toll house on the Duffield & Heage Turnpike Road that ran through Belper. A document of 1835, giving the summary of a meeting of the Trustees of the Duffield and Heage Turnpike Road, indicates that the toll house had been constructed by Jedediah Strutt, presumably shortly after the Act of Parliament authorising the road had been obtained in 1793. (2) Set of three Grade II cottages, the central one a former toll house built c. 1800 for the industrialist Jedediah Strutt. They are of two storeys with an attic and a symmetrical front facing the road with a central projecting gable. They are constructed from coursed squared stone with a plain tile roof and two massive brick ridge stacks. In 1793 Jedediah Strutt obtained an Act of Parliament to allow him to construct a private toll road to service his cotton mills and associated activities in Milford and Belper. A Strutt estate map of 1806 shows these cottages with the same ground-plan next to a toll bar across this 'Messrs. Strutts New Road'. This little-altered set of cottages, standing within the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site, is a significant survival of one of the most important early industrial sites in the country. (3)