Middleton

Middleton or Middleton-by-Wirksworth is an upland village and civil parish lying approximately one mile NNW of Wirksworth, Derbyshire, England. Middleton was, in 1086, a berewick (a supporting farm) of the town and manor of Wirksworth. Middleton was formerly known for its lead mines and high quality limestone quarries, including the underground quarry site at Middleton Mine. The Middleton Mine networks underground for approximately with tunnels on three different levels running under Middleton Moor to the Hopton Wood quarry works at the other side of the hill below Ryder Point Works’. Part of the tunnel collapsed in the 1970s leaving a noticeable depression in the ground above on the eastern side of Middleton Moor. The population of the parish as taken at the 2011 Census was 775.

The attraction towards Middleton becoming a village had much to do with the fact that it is one of the few Derbyshire villages in the limestone area that has a ‘perched’ water table due to the impervious volcanic rock and shale formations within its topology. The availability of water was the incentive behind it becoming a choice of settlement. Middleton formed originally in the Saxon times as a small farming hamlet which settled around a very high spring.