Until the end of the eighteenth century it was little more than the bridge over the River Amber for the road from Crich.

In 1840, George Stephenson brought the North Midland Railway past on its way to Leeds.

In 1860 the railway bridge failed as a goods train passed over it, but without casualties.

They built a wharf for loading the limestone from their quarry at Crich, and a group of lime kilns.

In 1825 James Stephenson founded a dye works at Wirksworth, opening branches in Duffield and Little Eaton, then Belper, and finally building his main works at Bullbridge in 1908.