Long Eaton.net

Long Eaton in 1801 was a Parish in the Hundred of Morleston and Litchurch, Derbyshire; nine miles from Derby, and 119 miles from London; containing 125 houses and 505 inhabitants. Until about the middle of the century, it remained very much the same, its handful of population occupied chiefly in boating and farming. An area with the beginnings of i... ndustry, where things moved slowly. The Church of St. Laurence, near the Market Place, can boast a history going back at least nine centuries. Once a Chapel of Ease, it is thought to be of Norman origin. It began to keep registers independent of its mother church at Sawley and in 1860, the Reverend Frederic Atkinson M.A. lost no time in getting the Parish made independent of Sawley. It was created as a separate Ecclesiastical Parish in 1864 and was restored and enlarged in 1868. Developments in transport opened Long Eaton up and in the 18th century the main route from Nottingham to Birmingham passed through Long Eaton and Sawley. A turnpike road from Lenton to Sawley was built. Canals too were an important means of transporting goods - particularly coal. With coal came the chimney revolution. Coal was the driving force of the steam age and with the steam engine came the railways, industry, factories and foundries. Lace making had started before 1830 and by 1842 a steam-powered factory was built. The early lace factories were small, but in 1852, Mr. Joseph Austin built a large four-storey building on land near the market place. Beside the Erewash Canal, where it passes under Derby Road, stands a group of tenement lace factories of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These buildings are the dominant features of the Long Eaton Mills Conservation Area, which was designated on 17th February 1983. An imposing physical relic of the lace industry, at its peak it employed half of Long Eaton's working population. The four large, four-storey mills, West End Mill (1882), Whiteleys Mill (1883), Harrington Mill (1885) and Bridge Mills (1902) are typical of the form of factory ...Read More