National Tramway Museum and open-air heritage village occupying a former Victorian limestone quarry on the edge of the Derbyshire hills.
Crich Tramway Village, in the village of Crich in the Amber Valley district of Derbyshire, occupies the site of Cliff Quarry, a limestone quarry with roots stretching back at least to the early nineteenth century. In 1840 George Stephenson, while building the North Midland Railway and identifying coal deposits at Clay Cross, leased Cliff Quarry and in 1841 constructed the Crich Mineral Railway — reputedly the first metre-gauge railway in the world — to transport limestone from the quarry to limekilns at Ambergate. The quarry remained in use until 1957, though a western section restarted and operated until 2010.
In 1955 the Tramway Museum Society was established and in 1959, members were drawn to the then-derelict quarry site at Crich, partly through the involvement of the Talyllyn Railway Preservation Society, which had been recovering track from Stephenson's mineral railway. The eastern part of the quarry was acquired for the museum. The first tram service ran in 1963.
The museum has since grown into the National Tramway Museum, housing over eighty tramcars and operating a 1.6-kilometre running line through a recreated period street and into the Derbyshire countryside.
Crich is a village on a Carboniferous limestone inlier on the edge of the Peak District in Derbyshire, and quarrying for limestone at the site probably began in Roman times. The Domesday survey of 1086 records a lead mine at Crich, and lead working continued until the mid-nineteenth century. The modern industrial history of Cliff Quarry begins in 1791, when Benjamin Outram and Samuel Beresford acquired land for Hilt's Quarry to supply limestone to their ironworks at Butterley. A separate quarry, later known as Cliff Quarry, was developed at the northern end of Crich Hill.
In 1840 George Stephenson, while constructing the North Midland Railway from Derby northward and identifying rich coal seams at Clay Cross, leased Cliff Quarry and built limekilns at Bullbridge and Ambergate, recognising that locally quarried limestone and Clay Cross coal could be combined to produce burnt lime for agricultural use, with the new railway to distribute it. To connect the quarry to the limekilns, Stephenson constructed the Crich Mineral Railway in 1841, a metre-gauge line — reputedly the first metre-gauge railway in the world — which included a 550-yard self-acting incline known as The Steep, with a maximum gradient of 1 in 5. Stephenson lived the last ten years of his life in Chesterfield and died in 1848.
Hilt's Quarry was operated by the Butterley Company, apart from a period when it was leased to Albert Banks, until its closure in 1933. After closure it became derelict, and for thirty-eight years Rolls-Royce used the site to deposit low-level radioactive waste including enriched uranium, cobalt-60, and carbon-14; dumping ceased in 2002 following a campaign by villagers. Cliff Quarry, operated by Stephenson's Clay Cross Company and its successors, continued in use until 1957, though a western section of the quarry was reopened and subsequently operated by RMC and then Tarmac before passing to Bardon Aggregates, which closed the western operation in 2010. The eastern portion of the quarry was acquired for museum purposes.
In August 1948 a group of enthusiasts on a farewell tour of Southampton Tramways purchased tram number 45 for £10, from which grew the concept of a working museum devoted to tramcars. The Tramway Museum Society was established in 1955, incorporated as a company limited by guarantee in 1962, and recognised as an educational charity in 1963. After a sustained search across the country for a suitable site, in 1959 members were drawn to the derelict Cliff Quarry at Crich, in part because the Talyllyn Railway Preservation Society had been recovering track from Stephenson's mineral railway from the site for use in Wales. The Society agreed to lease — and later purchase — part of the quarry site and its buildings.
The museum's first tram shed opened in 1960. The first tram service ran in 1963 using a horse-drawn car and Sheffield 15. The first electric tramcar service operated in 1964. In 1967 the Society agreed to create a period streetscape around the tramway — the concept of the Crich Tramway Village — and members began collecting period street furniture and complete buildings, including a working pub and shops. New tracks to Wakebridge opened in 1968. The scenic tramway to Glory Mine was opened in 1978. The museum's collection grew to encompass over eighty tramcars built between 1873 and 1982, drawn from cities across the United Kingdom and beyond. The present tramway follows part of the route of Stephenson's original mineral railway.
In early 2026 the museum announced that it was reverting to its original designation as the National Tramway Museum, having also been known as the Crich Tramway Museum and the Crich Tramway Village. The museum is operated by the Tramway Museum Society, a registered charity which receives no funding from local or central government.