The first cotton mill at Cromford Derbyshire and Richard Arkwrights house Arkwright was the inventor of textile manufacturing machinery which included the first practical means of mechanical spinning using rollers He installed the first of his waterpowered spinning frames at Cromford Wirksworth Derbyshire in The invention of the spinning machine revolutionised the production of yarn and led to rapid mechanisation of textile manufacturing throughout Britain It also made Arkwright a very wealthy man He commissioned the building of a grand house for himself Willersley Castle in a prominent location overlooking the River Derwent in Derbyshire but died before it was completed According to The Gentlemans Magazine Arkwright had accumulated a fortune of at the time of his death in From The Mirror October
