While driving the tunnel for the North Midland Railway, George Stephenson discovered both coal and iron, which together with the demand for limestone, caused him to move into Tapton Hall, near Chesterfield, and set up business as George Stephenson and Co.[citation needed] A map of 1833 showed Thanet Street and Clay Lane.

[citation needed] The 'Liverpool Party' of Stephenson engineers formed the Clay Cross Company in 1839 which they funded from their considerable resources.

As well as sinking a number of shafts with colliery support, there were coke oven works, brickworks, limeworks, irons furnaces and foundry.

The ductile pipe was developed into an internationally sold product, making Clay Cross renowned for its iron and coal industry worldwide.

[citation needed] Demolition of the vast Biwater site began in late 2008, and new houses and shops are appearing in the town.

The largest house Clay Cross Hall[6] was built in 1845 for the company's General Manager Charles Binns.

[citation needed] Colliery owner Thomas Houldsworth, also a churchwarden for 25 years, built Alma House which stood in extensive parklands.

He was responsible developer of Clay Cross pits until 1850, and then the Alma Colliery in North Wingfield, after the Crimean War.

An even earlier event was Hill House built by 1833 it was purchased by the North Midland Railway Company in 1837 as an office for resident engineer Frederick Swanwick.

When the tunnel[clarification needed] was completed, Swanwick left town, but the house was passed to engineers James Campbell and William Howe, and by the 1860s, Dr. Wilson, the local medical practitioner was in residence.

[citation needed] The North Midland Railway tunnel sank nine ventilator shafts through which smoke wafted across the Peaks.

[citation needed] Clay Cross is situated at the highest point on the line 361 feet above sea level, when it opened in 1840.

Another mile north along the 'Black Path' was Clay Cross railway station, between the halts at Tupton and Hepthorne Lane.

Other places of worship in Clay Cross[7] are: Parkhouse Colliery Memorial in Danesmoor Cemetery stands today as testament to a disaster.

It was an early member of the Co-operative Movement founded in Rochdale by John Bright that spread rapidly across the North of England.

[14] The District Auditor ordered the eleven Labour Party councillors to pay a surcharge of £635 each in January 1973, finding them 'guilty of negligence and misconduct'.

The surcharge was upheld by the High Court on 30 July 1973, which also added a further £2,000 legal costs to their bill, as well as barring them from public office for five years.

[23] A book on the dispute between the council and the government, The Story of Clay Cross, was written by one of the councillors, David Skinner and the journalist Julia Langdon.

Clay Cross town centre is currently undergoing a £22m redevelopment which has so far included a new supermarket, new bus station and new relief road.

To ease chronic congestion on the A61, which has seen traffic grow by 10% in the past few years, there is talk of a dual carriageway bypassing Clay Cross and Tupton before joining the A617 near Hasland, heading North West to Horns Bridge.

The secondary school was closed in 1969 and transferred to Tupton Hall as part of the Government's drive to comprehensive education, it is now one of the largest with around 2,000 pupils, including a sixth form centre.