Wirksworth is the oldest recorded Peak District town, with a charter dating from 835AD, where land around the town of Wirksworth was granted by Abbess Cynewaru to Duke Humbert of the Kingdom of Mercia, in return for a payment of lead. Lead had been mined since Roman times, and lead mining remained the major industry of the district throughout Saxon times and the Middle Ages right up until until the early 1800s.
Pendleton’s History of Derbyshire says of Wirksworth: “Even more picturesque than Ashbourne is Wirksworth, with its irregular streets, odd nooks and corners, and houses dusky with age. Lying in a quiet fertile valley, edged about with great limestone rocks... in comfortable contented serenity.”