Cottages Nos 1-4 (Consecutive) And House

This is a group of late 18th to mid-19th century brick and slate-roofed cottages and a house, located within the mill yard of the former textile manufacturing site at Darley Abbey, which traded under the name of Boars Head Mills. The buildings were constructed by the Evans family, who were associates of Richard Arkwright and related to the Strutt family, placing Darley Abbey within a significant network of early textile manufacturing sites in the Derwent Valley.

Nos. 1-3 form a terrace at the eastern gateway to the complex. No. 1 is a two-bay, little-altered mid-19th century cottage with original sash windows and contemporary rear outbuildings, appearing on a map of 1852. Nos. 2 and 3 are rendered and painted, formerly single-bay cottages, built by 1826. No. 4 is roughly square and may have originally been two or four single-bay dwellings, now combined into one house with timber sash windows below shallow brick lintels; it likely dates to 1792 and is shown on an 1811 map.

The house is a three-bay, three-storey brick and slate-roofed dwelling with a delicately concave front and convex rear. It was latterly used as an office and store and has been much altered. The south-western front overlooks the approach to the mill and is shown on a map of 1811.

The complex as a whole is exceptional due to the completeness of its survival and displays important aspects of early fire-proofing technology for textile factories. The site retains its major early buildings, along with 19th-century additions, many distinguished by iron roofs. These buildings are included for group value only.