Bamford

Bamford is named in the Domesday Book and is derived from the early English ‘Beam-ford’, which literally means ‘wooden footbridge’. The ‘ford with a beam’ lay on an ancient trade route which led northwards from the Hope Valley, across the moors into Yorkshire and was documented in 1599 as no more than a wooden footbridge...

Yorkshire Bridge
A new stone built bridge replaced the wooden one in 1695, and was far better suited to bear the weight of pack-horse teams led by the jaggers, to whom it became a familiar landmark, and who named it Yorkshire Bridge.

Once a small agricultural village, in the 18th century the industrial revolution came to the village with the opening of a water powered cotton spinning mill. The mill sits on the River Derwent and has now been converted to residential use.

The Derwent is extremely picturesque around the mill pool just above the mill itself. At the bottom of the village is the old toll gate which was used on the first turnpike in the area, which was built in 1758 to link Sheffield to Sparrowpit.

Reservoirs
In 1901 work began on the construction of the Derwent and Howden dams 7 miles north of the village. Up to 2,000 people came to work on the dams and were housed in a temporary village called Birchinlee, or ‘Tin Town’ as it was known locally due to the style of the workers’ housing. Some of the workers stayed and their descendants still live in Bamford.

When the Ladybower Reservoir was flooded the inhabitants of two villages were rehoused at the Yorkshire Bridge in order to allow the water to flood what was once their homes.

Today the Yorkshire Bridge is a tiny hamlet within the parish of Bamford consisting of three rows of gritstone cottages on the sloping east bank of the Derwent between the Inn and the bridge itself. Whilst Bamford is officially categorised as being part of the Hope Valley, it is strictly the sole survivor of three original villages in the Upper Derwent Valley – the other two, Ashopton and Derwent, having been sacrificed to make way for the waters of the Ladybower Reservoir.

Bamford attracts many visitors who come to walk, cycle, fish or simply enjoy the magnificent scenery. Paths and cycle tracks circle the three dams and are fringed by woodlands and gritstone edges.