Until McConnel's period of ownership the village did not exist beyond a collection of buildings in the immediate vicinity of the mill.

When McConnel's workforce objected to the quality of the housing available he took it upon himself to build the model village that became Cressbrook.

[1] Until May 2011 the Cressbrook Tunnel (and others) were closed to walkers and cyclists[2] for safety reasons and the trail diverted across the River Wye next to the mill.

This was written by and published by the Cressbrook Community association with the help of a grant from the Local Heritage Initiative, a Countryside Agency project.

Bill Bryson writes warmly about Cressbrook Mill in his 2015 travel memoir The Road to Little Dribbling: More Notes from a Small Island.