This is part of a heritage trail around Milford, taking in some of the key historic areas. You can find a map of the trail, and information on where to find interpretation boards containing more details on the town and its history at www.derwentvalleymills.org/milford.

Makeney Hall

Several generations of the Strutt family, who owned the cotton mills in Milford and Belper, lived at Makeney House (now called Makeney Hall). A farmhouse on this site was purchased by Anthony Radford Strutt and completely rebuilt c.1820. Anthony died in 1875, leaving the house and contents to Miss Anne Taylor, his adopted daughter. She declined to live at Makeney, and the house became home to the newly married George Herbert and Edith Adela Strutt, the following year.

All nine of their children were born here, and after Edith’s death, George Herbert remarried in 1898, to Mary Emily Charlotte Hind. They extensively enlarged the house, and had five further children before moving to Bridge Hill House in Belper, during 1917, where their youngest child Bridget was born later that year.  After George Herbert Strutt’s death in 1928, and the death of his eldest son and heir George Ashton Strutt in 1935, the family faced crippling death taxes, and the house was sold off in the 1930s. It became a hospital for a number of years, before closure in 1988 and conversion to the Makeney Hall Hotel in 1991.

The Holly Bush

This is an old hostelry, the present building dating back to the 17^th or early 18^th century. It was situated where Dark Lane, now a public footpath, came down into Makeney. It was part of the old Derby to Sheffield coach road. The placing of a holly bush or leaves at the entrance to a tavern to denote its status dates back over 1,000 years in Britain.

A brewhouse once stood on what is now the car park. This was demolished during the 20^th century, and the cottage attached to the Holly Bush was acquired so the business could expand.