The Greyhound Hotel, Cromford, Derbyshire
The growth of an industrial community and improvements in transport led Richard Arkwright and his successors to develop commercial facilities to serve the town. The Greyhound Hotel dominated the market place when it was built in 1778. Not only did it provide accommodation for visitors, it was used by the Arkwright’s for commercial transactions and as the location for festivities involving workers at the mills. To the right of the hotel are three storey houses, which served as shops.
Viscount Torrington stayed at the Black Dog Inn in Cromford in June 1790 and was impressed by the commercial development of the town. He described “much leveling of ground, and increase of buildings for their new market, (for this place is now so populous as not to do without).” Torrington included a poem which was written by an old woman and pasted onto the door of the inn:
1
Come let us all here join in one,
And thank him for all favours done;
Let’s thank him for all favours still
Which he hath done besides the mill
2
Modistly drink liquor about,
And see whose health you can find out;
This will I chuse before the rest
Sir Richard Arkwright is the best.
3
A few more words I have to say
Success to Cromford’s market day.
(Bruyn Andrews, C, The Torrington Diaries, vol. 2 (1935), p. 197.
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