Description: Although New Mills came into existence in the late eighteenth century as an industrial village involved in cotton textiles, its name is derived from a hamlet which grew up around a fourteenth century manorial corn mill, 'the New Mylne', enclosed by a loop of the river Sett, which was located near the site of the present Salem Mill (at the bottom of High Street).In the late eighteenth century, with the introduction of water power, mechanisation and the factory system for cotton, there came a rapid and fundamental change. From the original nucleus of houses built around the 'New Mill', a new town quickly grew up, spreading up what is now High Street and over the fields of the Torr Top estate. A population of 1,878 in 1801 had almost doubled by 1831.