"Piscatoribus Sacrum"

Sacred to Fishermen

Club History

Founded as “The Matlock and Cromford Angling Association” in 1874, Cromford Fly Fishers Club is a long established club with fishing for Brown Trout and Grayling on the magnificent Derbyshire Derwent. There is a good head of wild fish supplemented by careful limited stocking.

The club is fly fishing only throughout the official trout season but allows bait fishing during the winter months.

Membership to the club provides river access to 3 miles of double bank fishing 362 days of the year. The vast majority of the stretch is good wading water with a wide variety of water types from shallow riffles through to deep glides. There are also some challenging deeper pools.

Members have access to a private Grade 2 listed stone fishing lodge which was built by Richard Arkwright alongside the remains of the Bridge Chapel by Cromford Bridge, and is a copy of the more famous Fishing Lodge on the river Dove which anglers associate with Isaac Walton and Charles Cotton.

The club has a secure private parking area beside the Lodge as well as other private parking areas at Matlock Rugby Club and at Homesford at the bottom end of our club water. 

We are a friendly club who are always ready to welcome new members, and care deeply about protecting the river against poaching & pollution, preserving this beautiful stretch of water for generations to come.

Flowing through history along the CFFC waters….

The river isn't usually this high!

The river has of course always been there, working its way along a course between the limestone of the eastern plateau and the gritstone edge and moor on the west.

It was – and is – a dangerous river, known for sudden rises and drops in water level that the addition of the Derwent reservoir complex in the early 20th Century has calmed but by no means eliminated. Even today our fisherman are required to take careful note of river levels but also crucial precipitation levels higher upstream and on the hills that surround the valley.

When Arkwright came to construct his famous mill he was rightly wary of the Derwent and chose to power his wheels from the still powerful but more predictable Cromford sough.

Our little stone bothy by Cromford Bridge at the top of our waters is a gem, being modelled on the more famous Charles Cotton’s Fishing Temple on the River Dove as described by Isaak Walton in his book “The Compleat Angler”. Ours was built in the mid 19th century  when our club was founded, and used as a house by Sir Richard Arkwright’s water bailiff. It sits next door to, and possibly partially on top of, the old Bridge Chapel that dates back to at least the 15th century which was presumably there to offer divine support for those brave enough to enter and cross the river at this point! We are working with Derbyshire Archaeological society to explore exactly where the chapel lay and there is further good information to be found here:

More Info

Certainly we retain our connection with the divine (and perhaps wishful thinking!) in our motto that adorns the building:

Piscatoribus Sacrum “Sacred to fishermen”

As we progress downstream fast flowing water alternates with very deep pools and it is quite possible to move from 3 centimetres of water, to 30 to 300 in only a few steps. Even our most experienced anglers have been known to overtop their chest high waders by a lapse of concentration. 

Save only for the Severn Trent works there is no industry that has felt safe enough to use the power of the river anywhere on our waters and extensive research carried out on behalf of the club has established that there have never been navigable rights for craft of any size on the stretch since at least 1066.

The river is crossed by a footbridge, a railway bridge and an aqueduct near Lea Bridge but it seems there was no safe crossing for road traffic by bridge or in the water itself until Homesford. Even that “ford” has long since been washed away.