Bridge over King Street
Jedediah Strutt’s 1832 bridge across King Street connected his home, Green Hall, with his paddock and gardens. It was demolished in 1867
This is one of the earliest surviving photographs of Belper. A wooden footbridge across King Street was built by Jedediah Strutt II in order that food prepared in the mansion kitchens could pass over King Street into the Paddock (now the Memorial Gardens) for a garden party celebrating the passing of the 1832 Reform Act. Jedediah so liked the bridge that he had it rebuilt to permanently allow access to the Paddock without entering the street.
The Strutt Nightwatchmen’s Reports of 1833-6 mention the bridge. On July 22nd 1833, John Lee, John Murton of Duffield and Samuel Hallsworth and his Wife (she turns up a lot, but is never named) made ‘a great disturbance in King Street at 12.30pm under Mr Jedediah Strutt’s Bridge’.
By the 1860s, Jedediah had died and the family leased out Green Hall (set back on the left, beyond the bridge and hidden by trees) for use as a prep school for boys run by Mrs A Taylor and her daughter. We can date the demolition of the bridge to November or December 1867, as a visitor to the town remembered seeing it in early November 1867, but on their second visit to Belper in early January 1868, it had gone. An old wooden bridge may not have been seen as appropriate for use by young boys.