one large cobble stone, reinforced by iron in grooves from outside the Cruciform building

One large cobble stone, reinforced by iron in grooves from the yard outside William Strutt's Cruciform building at Berby Mill, Milford, 1793.

William Strutt, a civil engineer, architect and entrepreneur in cotton, is well known for being an early pioneer and promoter of fire-resistant building design. William Strutt was inspired to improve the safety of buildings after seeing his father's old mill burn down. He applied these ideas to his own buildings. This material are examples of how he redesigned cotton mills, avoiding the use of timber and other flammable materials. Instead using cast ironwork, bricks, and ceramics.

This material comes from William Strutt's first attempt at designing a fire-proof building at his Belper estate, known as the Cruciform due to its cross-shaped layout. Constructed in 1793, it has often been described as the first true attempt to design an intentionally fireproof (or at least as fire-resistant as possible) multi-storey building design. By extension most modern building design can track its 'DNA' back to this late 18th century construction, and the novel and revolutionary engineering philosophy its founded upon.

William Strutt's would continue to improve his buidlign designs over the next 30 years, contructing increasingly impressive fireproof buildings on his Belper estate, and his ideas later serving as the foundation of the massive Victorian dockyards, rail stations, and factories which can still be found across the UK today.

Of Strutt's original mill sites, only the North Mill in Belper remains, and is now a World Heritage Site.