Country Images - Stay At Home Edition - Pt1

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COUNTRY

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COUNTRY

STAY AT HOME BUMPER DIGITAL EDITION

W

elcome to a special edition of Country Images Magazine.

As many are in a “stay at home” situation we felt that you may like a good read from our archives to help pass a little time over a cup of coffee. Our editorial contributors have, over the years, showcased all that is best in Derbyshire alongside articles that explored places further afield. We hope you enjoy this, the first of many, that we will be presenting on line over the next few weeks.

Inside you’ll find a wealth of ideas for your home and garden.

Interesting articles on antiques and collectibles, and places to visit for the future.

Whether you live in the town or country, there is plenty of interest for you to enjoy in this special edition of Country Images magazine.

Jane Plant

THE BEST OF COUNTRY IMAGES PART ONE Download our FREE APP and read Country Images today. With the latest and past editions available to download for FREE.

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Feature That Stripe More and more people are choosing to add a striped feature carpet, runner or rug to their home and keep their walls plain and simple. It can make a room or hallway look stunning and suits either a modern or more traditional home.

Crucial Trading Don’t worry about messy paints, all you need is a colourful floorcovering. Audrey Sunrise is perfect for creating a dramatic statement and adding both colour and pattern to your home.

Choose accent accessories in a colour from the floorcovering to complete your look.

For local stockists visit www.crucial-trading.com or call 01562 743747 Brintons The Laura Ashley collection by Brintons is inspired by the elements of style that are synonymous with the Laura Ashley brand, Brintons’ exclusive Laura Ashley collection is a stunning range of patterned and plain carpets with a signature look.

For local stockists visit www.brintons.co.uk or call 0800 505055 Brockway Portobello is a real gem. Taking its inspiration from the antique markets of London and the muted, classical colours of Chelsea townhouses, this range of eight tonal striped carpets gives you the perfect opportunity to bring out the cool, elegant side of your home. Available in 4m widths.

For local stockists visit www.brockway.co.uk or call 01562 828200

AROUND THE HOME

Farrow & Ball

Children’s bedrooms, playrooms and dens are great places to be bold and have fun with colour. All the paints are water based and eco friendly with low or minimal VOC content and low odour.

For local stockists visit www.farrow-ball.com

Alessi

2014 marks the 20th anniversary of one of Alessi’s most famous and successful products, Anna G. Designed by architect Alessandro Mendini and launched in 1994, the characterful corkscrew, with her smiling face, quirky haircut and vintage dress, has captured the hearts of over one million people throughout the world, becoming a household design icon.

For local stockists visit www.alessi.com/en

A Warm Welcome Your hallway is the ďŹ rst thing visitors will notice about your home. Make it bright and airy to feel more spacious and add accessories and feature walls to really show off your personality.

Woodville Wallpapers by Zoffany The Woodville collection of breathtakingly beautiful orals, celebrates the craftsmanship of the artist. Woodville evokes a sophisticated and romantic mood, perfect for Country Houses and is equally at home wherever a touch of elegance is sought to achieve a timeless beauty.

For local stockists visit www.zoffany.com

Verdanta Wallpaper by Osborne & Little A stunning feature wall using Verdanta Butterfly House by Osborne & Little.

Boldy coloured butterflies in mosaic squares.

For local stockists visit www. osborneandlittle.com or call 0208 8123123 Avebury Stripe by Cormar Carpets You can make your stairs a real focal point with a striped carpet which would suit both a traditional and modern styled home. The Avebury stripe from Cormar is 100% pure new wool and available in 17 colours.

For local stockists visit www.cormarcarpets.co.uk or call 01204 881234

Bohemian Runner by Vanessa Arbuthnott Made from 100% British wool, woven in a family run mill in Wales. The gentle colours and simplicity of the design means these rugs and runners are particularly versatile and fit equally well in a country, classic or contemporary setting.

For local stockists visit www.vanessaarbuthnott.co.uk or call 01285 831437

Annie Sloan Chalk Painttm Striped Stairs by Annie Sloan Chalk Painttm decorative paint by Annie Sloan offers the simple way to transform furniture, walls and floors. This is a modern staircase which was fairly unremarkable, rather dark and generally needed cheering up. What a transformation with the Chalk Painttm For local stockists visit www.anniesloan.com

Eleonora by Prestigious Eleonora is from the new Galleria collection of wallcoverings by Prestigious, all on a non-woven substrate for easy paste-the-wall application.

For local stockists visit www.prestigious.co.uk or call 01274 688448

A Warm Welcome Hall Table by Old Charm The Hall Table is elegant and clean with beautiful pippy oak features. Includes three good sized drawers. The finish of this pippy oak hall table is simply called ‘corn’.

For local stockists visit www.oldcharm.co.uk

Interiors by Netptune Suffolk Console Table with a solid oak top and beautifully carved, hand painted legs. Buckingham Mirror has a neutral colour palette to suit every room. Cromwell Lamp has a slim shape designed to fit into tighter spaces such as a bedside table.

For local stockists visit www.neptune.com or call 01793 427427

Chic

Tremont – Romo Five luxurious qualities feature in this new collection, including an eye-catching houndstooth, a herringbone chenille and three enticing small scale geometric designs.

For local stockists visit www.romo.com

Making a centre piece out of a recovered chair is a classic look at the moment. With hundreds of stunning fabrics on the market, this is simple to achieve and can add big things to your room.

Courtyard Weaves – Blendworth

Canvas – Prestigious Drawing on the inherent appeal of cotton and linen, canvas comprises 16 designs in all, embracing jacquards, seersuckers and intricate appliquéd designs.

For local stockists visit www.prestigious.co.uk or call 01274 688448

Courtyard Weaves features three natural, dual-purpose weaves, designed to work in harmony with the Courtyard Prints.

Contemporary ‘stonewashed effect’ stripes and checks are found alongside a beautiful, textured floral weave, inspired by vintage bobbin lace.

For local stockists visit www.blendworth.co.uk

Brighten up dull rooms with a striking coloured blind or a feature wall. So easy to achieve with fantastic results.

Atmosphere – Clarke & Clarke A stylish collection of four embroidered patterns of two coordinating textured weaves in a modern, easy living style. Produced on a soft cotton group in popular shades of teal, berry, heather and natural.

For local stockists visit www.clarke-clarke.com or call 01706 242010

Momentum – Harlequin For Autumn 2014, the studio has produced two fashion-forward collections of woven fabrics, a dramatic wallpaper collection, an innovative collection of sheers and structures and a range of decorative plains, all of which work together seamlessly to create a harmonious and über-chic effect.

For local stockists visit www.harlequin.uk.com or call 0845 1236805

Pimlico – James Hare The Pimlico collection is a modern take on classic styles, traditional fabrics are given a contemporary twist ensuring the look is sophisticated and chic. A palette of strong catwalk colours offer a flair for excitement against elegant neutrals.

For local stockists visit www.james-hare.com or call 0113 2431204

Rustic Beach Look The shabby chic beach look is a real trend at the minute.

Transform your room with these ideas.

Below: Calmsden Chair by Vanessa Arbuthnott In May 2014, I added two comfortable sofas and matching chairs to my current furniture collection: The Calmsden design is modern and the Chedworth is elegant and classical. This chair matches the Calmsden sofa, is available in any of our fabrics and has a choice of tapered round or square legs.

For more information www.vanessaarbuthnott.co.uk or call 01285 831437 Above: Brighton by Prestigious Jaunty stripes join nautical shades in Brighton, a collection of cotton-rich weaves for upholstery, curtains and accessories. Smart from every angle, the 6 different designs make a lively contribution to interior dĂŠcor, whether in day rooms or kitchens, conservatories or even beach huts.

For local stockists www.prestigious.co.uk Right: Be Happy by Prestigious Be Happy is a colourful collection of jacquards, appliquĂŠs and cotton prints designed to bring smiles to the faces of children everywhere.

Nautical themes appeal to budding explorers while butterflies and kites encourage imagingations to fly sky-high.

For local stockists www.prestigious.co.uk

Classic Interior Look

A timeless interior scheme is the modern classic one.

Accessorise with these ideas.

Below: Burleigh Pink Asiatic Pheasants The Asiatic Pheasants design is one of the most recognisable and famous patterns of the Staffordshire pottery industry. Burleigh first produced this pattern in 1862 in pale blue, pink and purple colourways and it is still a firm favourite today.

The ‘Engraver’s Collection’ is a new range celebrating Burleigh’s most popular patterns and the skills of the Engravers. The collection features a combination of both current and archive designs to create a stand alone pattern which also perfectly complements ranges such as ‘Pink Asiatic Pheasants’.

For local stockists www.burleigh.co.uk or call 01773 740740

Above: Hampton Bed Linen by Christy This intricate embroidery on a crisp cotton fabric has a lovely hand-crafted character.

The soft blue and ecru colour combination lends it a classic elegance. 100% cotton and 200 thread count.

For local stockists www.christy-towels.com or call 08457 585252

Right: Biasca by Bodum Biasca iced tea jugs can also be used to create refreshing infused water and other infused drinks.

For local stockists www.bodum.co.uk

Images Emporium Studio Wallcovering by Prestigious

Displaying a sophisticated exclusivity, the new studio book of wallcoverings merges contemporary geometric and chic stripes with iconic retro motifs.

For local stockists visit www.prestigious. co.uk or call 01274 688448

Snowdrop by Scion Bedlinen

The duvet cover features an allover stylised snowdrop flower head, pigment-printed on a grey background. Available from Feb 2015.

For local stockists: Bedlinen 0845 603 0861 www.bedeckhome.com For local stockists: Fabrics 0845 123 6805 www.scion.uk.com

Large Square Log Basket

by Garden Trading

Cocoon by LSA

A complex decoration of gold and platinum wraps around each glass in the cocoon collection.

For local stockists visit www.lsa-international.com

An attractive, generously-sized large square log basket, so you don’t have to keep making unwelcome trips out in the cold. With useful carry handles for easy portability.

For local stockists visit www.gardentrading.co.uk

A Warm

Glow

Whether you like the cosy glow of candles in a lantern or you prefer something a little more unique here are some ideas to lighten up the darker evenings.

DAVID HUNT Orb pendant available in 3lt and 6lt and cream and black.

DAVID HUNT Badger glass pendant in pewter & bronze.

DAVID HUNT Autumn/Winter 2014 collection Discovery Bay featuring Bird TL, Sayer TL, Whistler TL and Pendants, Lyra TL and pendant, Oregon pendants and Willow pendant.

For local stockists and further information visit www.davidhuntlighting.com

A Warm

Glow

Whether you like the cosy glow of candles in a lantern or you prefer something a little more unique here are some ideas to lighten up the darker evenings.

PARLANE – Lanterns A variety of gorgeous lanterns by Parlane will suit any room, adding a lovely glow and warmth to your interior.

For local stockists and further information visit www.parlaneinternational.co.uk

ALESSI – I Love Animals Lamp Cillina, Cillirose, Cillioptical is a table lamp in the shape of an oversized sparrow, with a wire netting frame covered in stretch fabric. The light itself uses LEDs with a variety of colours that can be programmed or manually changed.

For local stockists and further information visit www.alessi.com

FEEL THE WARMTH The nights are steadily drawing in bringing with them a real drop in temperatures. Installing a log burner can be a real investment piece for your property. No one can deny the draw, comfort and warmth of a real fire in a home.

But maybe an easier option is a modern hole-in-the-wall style gas fire. Even though relatively small, some of the fires can give off an incredible amount of heat and will still add a real feature to your room.

The Highlander 7 Stove This fire has been developed using the best burning technology to give you a full view of the superb flame pattern created as the flames rise to meet the incoming air, this causes secondary combustion to take place, resulting in clean burn with dancing flames.

For local stockists visit www.dunsleyheat.co.uk

Contura i4 Classic This fire transcends the boundary between tradition and modern design. Why buy new and massproduced when there are so many beautiful, old things of much better quality? How lucky then that it is possible to combine good, old tradition with new and better technology, without losing the English classical expression.

For local stockists visit www.contura.eu

Verine Eden HE Balanced Flue Gas Fire This glass fronted landscape hole-in-the-wall fire has an incredible 83% net efficiency and up to 5.2kW heat output. It features an enchanting flame picture and comes with a choice of log or white stone fuel bed.

The Eden HE has been designed as a trimless fire for a very minimalist appearance, or team with an optional designer trim for a more prominent centrepiece.

For local stockists visit www.verinegasfires.co.uk

Contura 35 White The low model makes the stove easy to position in any environment. Choose a surround from glossy white steel, sober black steel or natural heatretaining soapstone. All models have a glass top and you can choose between a cast iron or glass door.

For local stockists visit www.contura.eu

Contura 750A Premodul Aluminium gives a really interesting contrast to the glow of the flames. If you want something that feels trendy not just now but for many years to come Contura 750A is an obvious choice. Both sides and rear are clad in aluminium which makes it even more attractive for positioning in the middle of the room.

For local stockists visit www.contura.eu

Kinder Proclaim HE Balanced Flue Gas Fire With an incredible heat output and high efficiency the Kinder Proclaim HE is one of the most economical hole-in-the-wall fires available. It features a beautifully realistic log fuel bed and a glossy black vitreous enamel interior lining. It also features remote control functionality with thermostatic operation.

For local stockists visit www.kindergasfires.co.uk

Fireplace Insert Contura i5 by Contura For installation in fireplace openings. Suitable for most open fireplaces, but particularly corner stoves where support bars are used and large doors can prove difficult. The handles are integrated in the door and the damper control is easily accessible on the front.

For local stockists visit www.contura.eu

For those chilly Spring evenings or just to get ahead before the autumn, here are some beautiful fires to get your imagination going.

Avalon 5 Slimline by Avalon For rooms with a narrow hearth, the Avalon 5 Slimline is an ideal choice. It is also our Best Selling Avalon model.

This room heater retains the efficiency and output of an ampler model, so you can still enjoy a generous warmth on those cold winter nights.

Boasting advanced stove technology for maximised combustion, this is a wonderfully eco-friendly option too.

For local stockists visit www.hunterstoves.co.uk

Country Images

Summer Emporium

Adding colour to your garden can be enjoyed whether you view it from inside or spend time in it relaxing. Brightly coloured accessories give an instant party feel while more permanent structures add character and atmosphere. Whatever your style, your garden now can become an extension of your home.

Childrenswear by Barbour Above: Adult favourites, now available for the younger generation. Inspired by the countryside and designed for fun, these collections combine style with ultimate durability. For local stockists visit www. barbour.com

Cotswold Throw by Neptune Right: Breathable, easy to look after, incredibly soft and very warm English wool throw. These add texture, warmth and colour to a room even when you’re not curled up inside one. For local stockists visit www. neptune.com or call 01793 427427

Murano by Neptune Left: Elegant all-weather willow, soft cushions and a clever hydraulic backrest make the Murano sunlounger the perfect seat to kick back and relax. A pleasure to look at and a real joy to use. For local stockists visit www.neptune. com or call 01793 427427

Monterey by Gloster Below Left: Monterey’s large, sweeping curves are reminiscent of the rolling waves in a surfer’s paradise, with deep, welcoming cushions. For local stockists visit www.gloster.com

Wooden Bottle Holder

by Garden Trading Below Right: This versatile rustic bottle holder has no end of uses, from carrying wine bottles from kitchen to table to holding milk bottles and storing condiments and drink bottles in the kitchen.

For local stockists visit www. gardentrading.co.uk or call 0845 6084448

Rocking Deck Chair by Garden Trading Right: What better way to pass the ‘Great British Summer’ than in this comfy rocking deck chair, with a fresh green and coral stripe design. For local stockists visit www. gardentrading.co.uk or call 0845 6084448

Accessories by Parlane International Below right: Sweet peas and galvanised buckets and crates by Parlane. For local stockists visit www.parlaneinternational.co.uk or call 01451 812700

Winchester Light by David Hunt Lighting Below left: Winchester black stone outdoor wall light. For local stockists visit www.davidhunt-lighting.com

IMAGES Emporium

Prestigious

Natural fibres and a rich, rustic timbre enable the seven fabrics in Prestigious Textiles’ new Andiamo collection to exude an immediate sensation of comfort and cosiness. Soft checks, twill stripes and modern damasks are joined by a woodland-inspired coordinate for curtains, cushions, throws and accessories.

For local stockists visit www.prestigious.co.uk or call 01274 688448

LSA

Olaf, Lars & Sven form a brand new range of whisky drinkware and accessories.

Gently squashed by hand, using wooden tools, every piece is made using age-old artisan glass blowing techniques with traditions as time-honoured as the distilling of whisky itself.

For local stockists visit www.lsa-international.com

Derbyshire Antiques

by Maxwell Craven

Antique local brasswork A notable artefact, which commemorated not only a long vanished Derbyshire military unit but also celebrated the sheer quality of the products of a local foundry, was sold this summer by Bamfords Ltd in their September militaria sale.

This was a substantial and impressive bronze miniature cannon (approximately quarter size) made to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the commissioning of the 1st Battalion of the Derby Rifle Volunteers. The Rifle Volunteers were raised in 1859 and the 1st Bn DRV, raised 18 months later, merged into the newly formed Sherwood Foresters Regiment becoming the 1st/5th battalion. They were based until then at Rowditch Barracks in Derby where the cannon was kept as a prized possession until it found its way to the HQ of the 6th Bn Sherwood Foresters, a TA unit, who housed it at Chesterfield.

Not only was this engaging object made for a local regiment, but it was made locally too by ‘Brassy’ Smith’s, the brass founding company established by Alderman Sir John Smith in Traffic Street in the 1840s to supply the railway industry. The Company later moved to Cotton Lane where it flourished until some 30 years ago. Sir John, who was knighted for hosting a Royal visit to Derby when he was mayor in 1872 a year after he presented the model cannon, lived at Parkfields House, Duffield Road (demolished in the 1990s) and died in 1897.

Indeed, Parkfields House itself, on its demise, yielded a great deal of first quality mid-Victorian era brass work, mainly door furniture, curtain rails and other fittings, all made for the great man when he acquired the Regency villa and spent lavishly ‘modernising’ it. Normally, such quality brass work might expect to fetch £30-50 in good condition and unprovenanced, but when one can prove who the manufacturer was and add a provenance, as with the artefacts from Parkfield House, you may double such prices.

This page; top to bottom: The Bamford’s ex 6th Sherwood Foresters’ cannon An 1891 full page advertisement for John Smith’s brass works, then still on Traffic Street in Derby Brassy Smith Victorian bronze knocker Cast bronze lamp, Railway School of Transport 1936 Homelands School, Derby, cast brass radiator cover 1934 Smith Door knob of c1850 from Parkfield House The presentation plate from the ‘Bamford’s’ cannon

Although Brassy Smith’s focused on railway components, they did run a domestic and bespoke catalogue which included brass and bronze domestic service bells as well as larger ones for turret clocks and service wings, door furniture, including a variety of fine knockers, letterboxes, handrails, grilles, balustrades and stair-rods. Nor were they the only firm in Derby and Derbyshire producing such domestic brassware, one of the more famous being Markham’s at Chesterfield. In the 1891 directory there are 20 such firms, some being also iron founders rather than specialist brass-makers; four were based in Derby, all but ‘Brassy’s’ being also in the iron trade.

There were also specialist craftsmen, usually called whitesmiths, as opposed to blacksmiths who worked exclusively in iron and in Derby, Alderman William Haslam, the brother of refrigeration pioneer Sir Alfred, was a leading exponent of artistic brasswork. His very talented son Edwin made arts and crafts wrought iron as well as ornamental

ANTIQUES & COLLECTABLES

This page clockwise from top left: River Garden’s bronze turtle 1920s, cast by Smiths (now at Allestree Hall) Wrought bronze work on Derby Council House door 1938 Door knob of 1902 Stairs at the Railway School of Transport, Wilmorton 1936

brasswork. The latter included things like church candlesticks, thuribles, crucifixes and gasoliers of wonderful quality, quite up to the standard of Hardman in Birmingham who made similar things to the design of Pugin.

Something of this sort, provenanced to a Derbyshire church or chapel is highly likely to have been by either Haslam or Brassy Smith and such things can fetch pretty prices. The enormous brass eagle lectern in Derby Cathedral is a product of ‘Brassy’ Smith.

When Derby was being beautified by the interwar buildings of Borough Architect Herbert Aslin CBE, he designed a great deal of Art-Deco ornamental bronze work, all of which was made by Brassy Smith’s. The Council House overdoors and all the metalwork on the façade of the newly re-furbished former

Magistrates’ Courts on Full Street which is now the Local Studies Library, are surviving examples. In the latter building and at the now demolished Homelands Grammar School there were some superb radiator covers and stair rails, a pattern repeated on W H Hamlyn’s LMS Railway School of Transport, Wilmorton, near Derby of 1936. The newly reinstalled bronze lampions outside the old courts are splendid examples of Smith’s work. The only tragedy is that we do not necessarily know the name of the craftsmen who made these wonderful objects.

The Bamford’s cannon which fetched £2,600 in August was very much top-of-the range, but lesser items of quality which can be provenanced are often reasonably priced, under £100 for fingerplates and knobs for instance.

Derbyshire Antiques

by Maxwell Craven

DERBY MINT SILVER PENNIES

Above: Coin of King Harthacnut (1035-1042) arm and sceptre type minted by Wulfheah in Derby.

Obverse: HARTHACNUT REX ANGL[ORUM] (Harthacnut King of the English); Reverse: PULFEAH ON DEORABI (Wulfheah at Derby). Note that the ‘W’ was formed with a P-like letter at this stage.

Right: Coin of King Eadgar (943-975) minted by Osulf in Derby.

Obverse: EADGAR REX ANGLOR[UM] (Edgar King of the English); Reverse: OZULF MO[NETALIS IN] DEORBY (Osulf, mintmaster in Derby)

When the Roman control of Britain ended with the death of the Emperor Constantine III in 411, coins to pay the troops suddenly ceased to come into the province and the economy swiftly collapsed along with a great deal that was predicated upon it. Only a small amount of gold coinage and scrap silver continued to serve high status transactions. The British, prior to their absorption by the various Saxon Kingdoms in Dumnonia (to c850), Strathclyde (to 1034) and Wales (until 1828) seem never to have reverted to a money economy and certainly did not mint their own coin with the fleeting exception of Hywel Dda, King of All Wales (d950).

The Saxon invaders likewise did not use coins until the late 6th century when gold thrysmas (based on the late Roman tremissis, one third of a solidus) were introduced on a limited basis and the later 7th century, which saw the introduction of silver sceattas

or peningas (pennies), which we now know were used fairly widely at least in Mercia, East Anglia, Wessex and Kent by the mid-8th century before falling out of favour.

One of the chief purposes of a Saxon

burh like Derby or Nottingham was trade (after a measure of defence). To that end King Offa of Mercia (757–796) reintroduced the small silver coin – derived from the Roman denarius – the ‘broad penny’ which was wider and thinner than a sceat. It swiftly became the universal English (and later also Norse) medium of exchange and lasted to the end of the Medieval period in one form or another.

The coins were hammered from sheet silver and each burh had a mint, a few like York, London, Winchester and Canterbury, being of considerable importance, others less so. To these lesser mints, dies were distributed from either York or London for the striking of the Royal coinage, done by local mint masters who additionally placed their names and that of the burh on the coins. They were responsible to the Crown for the volume of coin, the quality of the striking and the purity of the metal, and were men of considerable consequence. A mint was established in the new burh of Derby under Athelstan (925-939) and immediately began to strike coin.

The list of its mint masters constitutes the earliest body of named Derby citizens known to us and they are a valuable record. The mint was probably situated in the parish of All Saints and most likely was conducted as a ‘cottage’ industry insofar as the striking of coin was done at the moneyers’ houses, bearing in mind that more than one is recorded for most reigns and we do not know if they worked in tandem or succession. If the latter, which seems inherently the more likely, the turnover in mint masters must have been rather high. Failing to meet the standards set by the crown could result in some pretty drastic punishments, like the loss of a hand or imprisonment.

and include most types authorised during a period of rapid change and upheaval. Unfortunately, in my ten years at Bamfords, we have never had even one Derby mint coin through, although medieval hammered pennies turn up fairly frequently. The earliest tend to be the most expensive retailing at prices varying between £400 to over £2000, depending on the type and the condition, the latter being less than perfect, with coins broken or with nibbled edges. Later issues are more affordable, with post-Conquest examples available from about £150, although amongst the plethora of pre-Anarchy mints, Derby is hardly one of the most common. The coins minted during the Anarchy tend to be struck in a rather inferior manner, as is apparent from the impenetrable legend on the reverse of that illustrated.

Mind you, when I was first working with the excellent collection of Derby mint coins at Derby Museum from 1979, they were pro rata a lot more pricey than today. At that time the metal detector boom was just getting under way and since then the number of known Derby mint coins has about doubled, which has helped the prices a little.

Nevertheless, to get a specimen in decent condition, you do need to be prepared to pay a bit of a premium. But to have such a tangible reminder of Derbyshire’s distant past, going back over 1000 years in many cases, and having something made by one of the few named local people of the era is certainly something worth collecting.

These mints continued uninterrupted by the Norman conquest until the so-called ‘Anarchy’ – the civil war between King Stephen and the Empress Matilda in the mid-12th century. It was only with the accession of Henry II in 1154 that chaos was ended and order restored. One consequence was the granting of a charter to Derby (the first recorded but not necessarily the first there was) and the other was the closure of the mint. The last coins were minted in the name of King Stephen (1137-1154), which must have been a serious blow to the town’s prestige.

Nevertheless, charter evidence shows that Walkelin, the last known mint master of the town, continued to play an important role in its affairs and was a member of the powerful extended family of Hugh de Derby, Dean of the College of All Saints before it was ceded to Lincoln. His coins are extremely rare and an example would be worth up to £3,000.

In the pre-Conquest period too, the number of coins and moneyers invariably exceeded that of Nottingham, strongly suggesting that Derby enjoyed a more vibrant trade than the more easterly town, which probably played a more military role in those turbulent times.

The coins minted at Derby range from the 930s to the 1150s,

Above: Coin of King Stephen (1135-1154), voided cross with martlets type. Reverse: WAKELININ DEORABI (Walkelin at Derby).

Derbyshire Antiques

by Maxwell Craven

THE BASSANOPHONE The Bassanos were one of the most artistically gifted families ever to settle in Derbyshire. They originated in Bassano del Grappa in the Veneto and first came to notice in the late 15th century as musicians in the Serene Republic of Venice, playing in the Doge’s band. During Henry VIII’s reign two of the brothers came to London to be court musicians and three further generations of them helped entertain Queens Mary and Elizabeth and Kings Edward VI, James I and Charles I before members of the family moved to Lichfield as Vicar Choral at the Cathedral. They were even granted a coat-of-arms.

A No.2 cabinet model sold recently The Civil War killed music in most forms, and this Puritan-inspired effect drove the family to Derby. Here they produced younger son, Christopher Bassano who became a painter (like two of his Italian namesakes in the 16th and 17th centuries) specialising in funeral hatchments (there are three in the Cathedral), heraldic coach panels, apart from workaday portraits and the spectacular painted ceiling at the Franceys’ family house on the south-west corner of the Market Place, which was destroyed in 1936 (apart from a dual portrait of Mr & Mrs Franceys from it, now in the Museum’s collection). Even his account book survives in the Local Studies Library. His great niece became the model for Joseph Wright’s painting, Maria and her Dog Silvio, and in the 19th century the family produced an operatic diva of some renown, Louisa Bassano.

The cover of the 1910 catalogue.

[Michael Bassano]

Later in that century, however, came George Henry Bassano (1840-1913). He was a member of a younger branch of the family and was apprenticed to a whitesmith - a worker in non-ferrous metals - and it’s as a whitesmith that he is first listed in a Derby Directory in 1863. Yet within five years he was listed again, this time as an electrical engineer. Clearly his skills had evolved to keep abreast of technical advances, so much

so indeed that within a decade or so he was a manufacturing electrician, working with his sons Francis and Harry as Bassano & Sons.

George was very early in the field of telephone development, losing a court case to Edison Bell over the patent of a diaphragm he had invented. He also made coils and automatic signalling equipment for the railways and produced a line of Wheatstone Bridges. He also wrote Electricity in the Service of Man: a Popular and Practical Treatise on the Applications of Electricity in Modern Life (1890), as well as several works on natural history, for he was a keen fisherman and lepidopterist..

The works were in Back Parker Street, Derby, and the family lived ‘round the corner’ in Parker Street in the West End. Later they moved to 23 Lodge Lane and the works to 155 Bridge Street.

The firm’s most notable achievement was musical, almost as the family tradition might have dictated. George in the early 1900s invented the Bassanophone, a gramophone built to the very highest specifications. It was one of the most successful and advanced reproducers of its day and used a metal sound box built in to its cabinet rather than an unwieldy horn, the quality of the patent ‘soundbox’ and the diaphragm ensuring much superior sound. The exquisitely engineered Swiss movement ensured smooth running and it would play 12” records (about 50 minutes) with one 50 second wind, which was something of a marvel in those days. It also had a patent auto-stopper, so that once a record was played, instead of the needle revolving scratchily around the run-off until someone raised it, it would stop immediately of its own accord.

The Bassanophone came out in 1908 and large machines in beautifully crafted Spanish Mahogany cabinets on cabriole legs - the No. 1 Model - retailed at no less than 50 guineas (£52.50 in today’s money), whilst the so-called Miniature Bassanophone, set in a squat rectangular cabinet on straight legs cost £16 in inlaid mahogany and £15 in fumed oak.

Values have increased a great deal since

IT WAS A ROLLS AMONGST GRAMOPHONES then and collectors are always keen to get their hands on Bassanophones in excellent condition. I looked for an example for nearly 20 years when I was at the Museum and eventually tracked a mint condition Miniature Bassanophone down in the North West in 1995, when it cost us almost £800. Today, one of these simpler machines in good condition would cost you over £1000 and a No.1 Cabinet model at least twice that, although I confess I have never encountered one; certainly we have never had one go through Bamfords salerooms in the decade I have worked there. Yet where the name means nothing to the vendor, they are still available for very modest sums. The full cabinet No. 2 model (illustrated) went at auction recently for £20 against a £30-40 estimate and another, rather more modest one made £335 on eBay a complete steal by any yardstick.

George Henry’s other electrical gadgets are also out there in limited numbers. If that sort of thing interests you, always check the manufacturer. If it is G H Bassano or Bassano & Sons then it might be a good investment, especially if the vendor is not familiar with the firm and its history and the price is not therefore marked up on grounds or rarity.

Frank used to travel up to London to liaise with their London agent Alfred Hayes of New Bond Street,

the journey then taking 3 hours by Midland Railway. When George died in February 1913, the sons took over, issuing a fresh catalogue for 1914 and introducing Model No. 3, also a tall cabinet model with a triple spring polished and plated movement, solid brass tone-arm and bracket and improved autostop. It was a Rolls amongst gramophones, priced accordingly but they still sold well.

Unfortunately, when the war broke out the brothers closed the firm down and grandson Francis Henry joined the RNAS. Both Frank and Francis Henry eventually worked for RollsRoyce after the end of hostilities and following a period of unemployment.

But the future developments in sound reproduction, whilst they would have spurred George Henry into further innovative developments, did not have the same hold over his family and the firm was never revived. Consequently, because the Bassanophone was entirely hand made, production was never high and numbers surviving must be fairly low.

But to the collector, this is an additional incentive to find examples of this unique Derby made instrument.

I would like to acknowledge the help given in writing this article by Michael Bassano and for his kindness in sending pictures from the catalogues.

Above: A cabinet model No.1 Bassanophone from the 1910 catalogue.

[Michael Bassano]

Far Left: A Miniature Bassanophone, as purchased by Derby Museum 1995.

[M Craven] Left: The playing deck of the Bassanophone.

[M Craven]

Derbyshire Antiques

by Maxwell Craven

Douglas Percy Bliss ARCA Gun Hills near Windley painted from the garden of the Bliss’s cottage, a corner of which is visible left [Tate Britain]

I was first made aware of Douglas Percy Bliss early in my career at Derby Museum, when in the later 1970s we had an exhibition of his work, and I had the pleasure of meeting both the artist and his equally talented artist wife Phyllis.

His luminous landscapes impressed me although they smacked of a long lost bygone age when one did not have to be obsessively modernist in order to win the critical acclaim that Bliss clearly had done.

Douglas Percy Bliss Whilst we were busy putting his pictures

by Phyllis Dodd, 1927 up, I was told that the couple lived up the [Private Collection] road at Windley, but in fact I discovered that Douglas considered himself a Scotsman on the basis that his grandfather had left his native Northamptonshire and moved to Morayshire in Scotland in the 19th century. Ironically, he was a true son of the Empire, having been born one of four children to businessman Joseph Bliss in Karachi on 28th January 1900, although he

was raised in Edinburgh and attended George Watson’s College for eleven years.

The Great War was still raging when he left school, and he hastened to join the colours, in his case the Highland Light Infantry, serving for around 18 months. He then returned to read Art History at the University of Edinburgh, graduating in 1921 before switching to English Literature. He then headed south to London to the Royal College of Art where he added a study of engraving to the expected curriculum and became a friend of both Edward Bawden and Eric Ravilious. The influence of the latter can certainly be detected in some of Bliss’s landscapes – or was it the other way round?

He contributed engraved illustrations to Border Ballads, published by OUP in 1925 and several other publications including an edition of Edgar Allen Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination.

His illustration for The Descent into the Maelstrom has echoes of Edvard Munch’s famous The Scream. Other commissions soon began to follow and he also wrote a very well received History of Wood Engraving. In

Below: Engraving from his illustrated edition of Edgar Allen Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination: Descent into the Maelstrom [Private collection] Right: ‘Rosetti Painting a Lovely Guggums’ [Christies] Below right: Derbyshire Landscape, probably also a view of the family garden and the hills beyond [Private collection]

1928 he married fellow artist Phyllis Dodd, who encouraged him to move back from engraving to painting; he specialised in landscapes. They set up home at first in Blackheath, SE London, where he taught at the local school of art and they were both co-founders of the local Blackheath Society.

He returned to Scotland through his having re-joined the colours, this time in the RAF, which duly sent him there. Unfortunately, in the chaos of war, much of his unsold work, both painted and engraved, was stolen or otherwise went astray, which was a major blow. Yet once hostilities were over, he was appointed principal of the illustrious Glasgow School of Art and took to Glasgow itself with enthusiasm. During the 18 years he held the post he was instrumental in saving much of the work - not only painted, carved and constructed but architectural as well - of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, a man then not widely recognised as an apostle of the Art Nouveau and an avatar of the Modern Movement. It is ironic that Mackintosh’s incomparable library at the school (which he designed) was so recently destroyed by an entirely avoidable fire, taking with it a vast collection of his created work, stored in the room above the library, a fact no-one seems to have mentioned.

had lived at Shottle during the war. A painting

by Bliss of the garden at Windley dated 1946 (estimated in 2013 at £600-700) suggests that they bought a cottage there immediately after the war, unless it represents a view from the house of his brother. Certainly their houses included Lammas Cottage, Shottle and Woodside Cottage, Windley.

It was after his retirement from Glasgow that the couple went to live in Derbyshire, possibly on the recommendation of his brother Dr T P Bliss, who

He died in Derbyshire on 11th March 1984 and his widow eleven years later, leaving two daughters, Prudence and Rosalind.

From such a base they were able to exhibit much more widely, his art being greatly enjoyed by the public even if treated a little dismissively by the metropolitan cognoscenti. Nevertheless, some of his pictures are in the collections of the Tate and of course, Derby Museum & Art Gallery. At Bamfords, where I work, we have sold a small number of his local landscapes which, from the collector’s point of view are still under-valued coming in at the upper hundreds and low thousands at best. Indeed, as I write, Christie’s are offering his whimsical pre-war painting entitled Rosetti Painting a Lovely Guggums, showing a rather lecherous looking artist in almost a parody of the trendy trappings of the era, painting a reclining Lizzie Siddall. The estimate is in the region of £1,500 but no doubt it will do better.

Derbyshire Antiques

by Maxwell Craven

Some local books

There are two types of local book: those that were written about the local area (in other words, Derbyshire) whether for historical research, factual compilation or fiction in a local setting and those written by Derbyshire people. There is a great deal of scope for collecting here and the strange thing is that there are not that many people collecting along these lines, although some of us become collectors willy-nilly, having the need for repositories of local information for use as we write.

At Bamford’s December fine art sale, there will be a number of local books consigned by a prominent local collector, some really quite rare. The one that really caught my eye was John Whitehurst’s An Inquiry into the Original State and Formation of the Earth Deduced from Facts and the Laws of Nature, 2nd (and best) edition, published in 1786.

John Whitehurst FRS (1713-1788) was a leading figure in the British Enlightenment and a founding member of the Birmingham-based coterie later dubbed by Joseph Priestly as the Lunar Society. Son of a clockmaker at Congleton and descended from an ancient yeoman family from Whitehurst, in Dilhorne, Staffs, Whitehurst settled at Derby as a superior clock and instrument maker in 1736, where his mechanical genius and enquiring mind brought him rapidly into contact with the intellectual and manufacturing elite of the Midlands. At his Derby house he thrice entertained Benjamin Franklin and with his Lunar Society friends developed interests not only in geology, but in domestic economy, hydraulics, meteorology, astronomy

Whitehurst’s Inquiry: portrait frontispiece, engraved after Joseph Wright [M Craven]

and other branches of mechanics. With the patronage of the 2nd Duke of Newcastle KG, whose new house he fitted with a system of domestic hot water and flushing lavatories, he was granted a sinecure at the Royal Mint and spent his last decade in London, where he became FRS and active participant in coffee house society, inventing a machine to measure 100ths of a second and developing a system of universal measurement which closely anticipated the metre.

The book was first written in 1778 but this edition was considerably enlarged and illustrated with plates. It is in quarto, decently rebound, with viii + 282 pages, the frontispiece portrait, engraved by J Hall, being after the famous portrait of Whitehurst

by Joseph Wright ARA, with seven engraved plates (five folded).

This was the first great modern treatise (first developed but left unpublished in 1763) about the origins of the earth which put down markers for the rapid development of modern geological theory. It was the culmination of his geological work, where

Whitehurst’s Inquiry: Title page [M Craven]

the application of observation and the laws of nature enabled Whitehurst to arrive at twelve basic geological principles.

Indeed Whitehurst suggested that igneous activity lay behind both intrusion and extrusion. He also partly understood the mechanics of faults.

Whitehurst’s Inquiry: Section Through the Derwent at Matlock High Tor [M Craven] To some extent the work anticipated the work of James Hutton (1726-1797), Erasmus Darwin’s friend, whose own Theory of the Earth (published 1788 with second edition 1795) owed much to his links with his fellow countryman James Watt and other Lunar Society members. Hutton also visited Derbyshire twice in 1774 and we now know that he exchanged ideas with Whitehurst then if not also later. Who influenced whom in such exchanges must however remain an open question. Whitehurst, after 1775, belonged to Benjamin Franklin’s London Club of 13 which then included James Hutton, so a great deal of cross-fertilisation of opinion and theory testing must have gone on between them.

Thanks to Sir Archibald Geikie however, it was Hutton not Whitehurst who has been generally accepted as the ‘founder of modern geology’.

This gem thanks to it having been rebound is estimated at £180-250, but in original bindings would be worth up to £300. A copy, like the one I bought myself a few years ago, containing the bookplate of one of Whitehurst’s friend, would make a further premium, perhaps £500-600.

Also estimated at around £300 is a very smart copy of Joseph Tilley’s classic work, The Old Halls, Manors and Families of Derbyshire. Although I found that when researching my own two volume epic on Derbyshire Country Houses, Tilley was not necessarily to be relied on, these four exceptionally handsome large quarto volumes do contain a vast amount of information and many anecdotes of interest. The researcher merely has to check or evaluate the information before deploying it.

are not brilliant, in some cases, like Eaton Dovedale, Hoon Hall or Broadlow Ash, these little vignettes are very valuable as they constitute our only record of the house in question. This copy bears the book plate of George Jobson Marples, the builder of Thornbridge Hall near Bakewell, giving it a splendid provenance.

This could push the hammer price towards £400 on the day. In retail a reasonable set can cost over £600. The last set sold at auction made a respectable £220, although that was not a patch on the copy now with Bamfords.

Finally, whilst on a topographical note two volumes of Peak Scenery: or Excursions in Derbyshire made Chiefly for the Purpose of Picturesque Observation by Ebenezer Rhodes of Sheffield (1762-1839) is another large quarto work of 18181823 originally in four volumes. The difference between it and Tilley is that the pictures (all engravings) could not have had a better originator; all 29 plates were engraved by various people after drawings done especially by the author’s then little known Derbyshire-born artist friend F L Chantrey. He of course went on to become the Regency Age’s favourite sculptor, Sir Francis Leggart Chantrey RA (1781-1841).

Below: Rhodes’s Peak Scenery: title page [Bamfords Ltd]

Above: Rhodes’s Peak Scenery: Engraving after Sir Francis Chantrey of Castleton’s Peak Cavern and Rope Works.

The two volumes in original unbound condition at Bamfords should make £200-250 as the work is relatively rare due to years of dealers breaking copies up in order to frame the engravings.

Tilley’s work in worn original bindings [not the Bamford’s copy; Private collection]

The book was published between 1892 and 1902 (by which time the author had died) by Marshall, Hamilton Kent & Co in London, Buxton and Derby. The books are bound in green morocco grained cloth on bevelled boards and embossed with gold titles and a view of Haddon on the front. They are illustrated with rather crude little woodcuts of each house and plenty of shields of arms and some crests relevant to each. Although the pictures

Country Images

The Lost Houses of Derbyshire

by Maxwell Craven

CLIFFE House, Newton Solney

Newton Solney is close enough to Burton-onTrent to have been something of a magnet for the busy brewery owner and it attracted a number of members of the ‘Beerage’ with the Grettons at Bladon House, along with Allsopps at The Mount, Salts at Rock House and a succession of Hoskinses, Worthingtons and Ratcliffs at Newton Park.

The Ratcliffs, perhaps surprisingly, appear to have originated in 18th century Derby; William Ratcliffe [sic] of St Mary’s Gate being recorded as a maltster in 1756 and 1762. His son John the elder had settled at Burton-on-Trent as a ‘traveller’ – peripatetic salesman – for Bass, joining William Bass as a

DERBYSHIRE’S LOST HOUSES Left: South west aspect of Cliffe House in 1929 Bottom left: Map of the house and its grounds from the sale particulars, 1929.

Below: The stable block, with the rear of Mr. Kent’s Rolls 20/25 visible and two skiffs from the boathouse on the left.

Bottom: The Le May’s boating on the Trent by the jetty. partner from 1796, renewing the arrangement in 1830 and dying in 1834. He was succeeded, not by his elder son John Ratcliffe junior but by the younger, Samuel, whose partnership was signed in 1835.

By 1858 Sam Ratcliff (as the name henceforth appears to have been spelt) felt sufficiently well off to build himself a new house and chose a plot beside and above the Trent at the Burton-on-Trent end of Newton Solney parish, which he bought from the Earl of Chesterfield in October 1859, jointly with Abraham Bass (1804-1882) the third brother of his partner, the Derby MP Michael Thomas Bass. This plot was called the Cliffs or The Cliffe and lay against the border of Newton Parish with Bladon Hill behind but actually partly in Winshill, sandwiched between the road and

the Trent. It had originally been sold to Lord Chesterfield by Abraham Hoskins of Newton Park in 1836 but must have been thought by the Bretby estate too distant from their core holdings and sold on.

Ratcliff also acquired, then or later, two adjacent fields, this time wholly in Newton, called Far Underwood and Bank, his acquisitions amounting to 11 acres in all. He had already commissioned Robert Grace of Burton to design him a new house and the sheer speed with which it was constructed suggests that, despite the contractor T Lowe & Sons putting

Above: A view of the gardens, as landscaped by William Baron & Sons Right:The panelled drawing room

170 men to work on the site, work must have begun before the sale of the plot had been completed, probably in spring 1859.

The architect Robert Grace was born at Stafford in December 1794, son of Robert and Mary Grace, and was articled from 1808 to 1815 before marrying Susannah Tunley at Burton whose sister Sarah had married Samuel Ratcliff at Derby in 1813. Thus in engaging Grace - who had built up a good practice in Burton working a great deal for the Bass family,

and was a reasonably accomplished architect - he was keeping it in the family.

Grace also had an office at 2 Babington Lane in Derby in the 1850s and died in 1870. None of his Derby work has been positively identified, but it may well include commissions like the baths on Bass’s Recreation Ground and other projects sponsored by Bass.

With such a concentration of manpower devoted to building it will be no surprise to learn that the family were able to move into Cliffe House during February 1860

The Lost Houses of Derbyshire and a commissioning party was held on the 3rd of March.

The house was built on a high terrace above the river Trent and was of brick with dressings of local Keuper Sandstone, entirely ‘Jacobethan’ in feel.

Because of the rise in the ground behind the house beyond the Repton-Burton road, its building platform was made to protrude west towards the river, creating a sharp from the west end of the house to the water, where a boat house and jetty were provided. The main fronts were each of seven irregular bays, facing south and north, with the west front being in effect the end of the two parallel ranges which made up the house, which was decorated with ornamental straight coped gables and two storey canted bays with a massive porte cochère between them, embellished with pinnacles, ‘Tudorbethan’ arches and battlements rather like that added to Repton Park and later transferred (stripped of some ornament) to The Hayes, nearby.

Inside, the hall was high and almost square with a well staircase of Hoptonwood stone, but the balustrade was supported on odd, curvy, cast iron balusters cast at Burton by Thornewill & Co. Otherwise, the interior embellishment was largely confined to ornamental plaster cornicing and plain marble fireplaces, the most ornate room being in the drawing room, which had enriched cornices, lavish, floor-to-cornice fielded mahogany panelling and a French style

black marble chimneypiece.

There was a good long low stable block and coach house, plain with three openings with depressed brick arches, each topped by a plain gable with a lodge on the road. The grounds were splendidly landscaped by William Barron & Son of Borrowash.

Sam Ratcliff did not long enjoy his new house, for he died just over a year after he had moved in. Perhaps he knew he was ill from the start, which might explain the haste with which the house was built.

Following his demise, it remained the residence of his sixth son Richard for some years before he moved to Orgreave Hall on the SW side of Burton, only to be replaced as resident by the fifth son, the bachelor Frederic, who in 1873 held 8 acres 1 rod 36 perches in Newton and three acres in Stapenhill whilst Robert, the eldest son, then still living at the latter, held 70 acres 3 rods 13 perches there.

Robert went on to buy Newton Park from Lord Carnarvon five years later. Frederic died at Cliffe House in the 1880s, leaving his two surviving unmarried sisters, the Misses Sarah and Emma Ratcliff in residence.

After the Great War, both ladies moved out to eke out their dotage in more congenial surroundings (the house was said to have been cold and draughty), and it was let and later sold to Percy Kent Le May, the head brewer at Bass.

Samuel Ratcliff in later life [Private collection] He moved out in May 1929 when it was placed on the market. Unfortunately the Great Depression, triggered by the Wall Street Crash, had begun to make its effects felt and it attracted little interest, being eventually sold to a contractor who pulled it down for the value of the materials in 1930. The site is still vacant, but the impressive terraces, the house platform, lodge and stable block remain, the latter converted into dwellings.

The house, into which a considerable amount of the profits of Messrs. Bass, Ratcliff & Gretton had been sunk, had lasted but seventy years. The Ratcliff family, however, remained in the village, at Newton Park, until 1966, just over a century after the completion of their forebear’s new seat.

Captions to the pictures supplied from the 1929 sale catalogue, in the author’s collection.

The Lost Houses of Derbyshire

by Maxwell Craven

Newcastle House, Derby

In 1635, Derby was in a bit of a stir. King Charles I was on his way to the town following some long, hard negotiations with the Scots at Ripon. He would be staying overnight in the town and the burgesses who comprised the Corporation and the two annually elected Bailiffs saw an opportunity. It was well known that the King was keen Main picture: to raise money for he had been governing without Parliament The house as it was in 1898, showing the for almost six years so was on the look-out for opportunities to balustrade [Derby replenish the treasury. The burgesses on the other hand wanted Museums Trust] some concessions too. The town’s charter, although technically renewed with the accession of every monarch, needed drastic Picture above: updating and streamlining to make the running of Derby A view of the house in the 1950s, now minus smoother. Here was an opportunity for a classic trade. the balustrade.

[Derby Museums Trust]

The following passage from the town annals tells us roughly what happened next: ‘1635. Charles I was at Derby and slept at the great room in the Market Place. The Corporation gave the Earl of Newcastle, for the King, a fat ox, a calf, six fat sheep and a purse of gold, to enable him to keep hospitality; that is, invite them to dinner…’

Thus we learn that the host was William Cavendish, 1st Earl of Newcastle and Lord Lieutenant of the county and that not only did the burgesses of the Corporation supply most of the refreshments, but also gave the Duke gold as an inducement.

That the gold would have been passed on to the King prior to the grand supper is

not in doubt. By the time the king had resumed his journey to London the next day, he had a substantial addition to the treasury and the burgesses had a new charter.

The charter bestowed upon the town a number of new revenue-raising possibilities and strengthened the role of the Corporation in its legal function. Most memorably, it abolished the two bailiffs and replaced them with a single mayor and created the bench of aldermen, which survived until the messy and useless local government reforms instigated by Messrs Heath and Walker in 1974. Finally, the charter, renewed in 1682, appointed the King’s host, Lord Newcastle, as hereditary High Steward of the Borough, a post which passed by remainder to his Devonshire cousins and also lasted until 1974.

What we are not told is the whereabouts of the house in which Lord Newcastle gave this lavish entertainment – the house which contained this ‘Great Room on the Market Place’, a venue referred to at various other points in the history of the Borough. Indeed, we must be one of the few provincial towns – I speak of a time long before we were a city – which could boast no less than two grand ducal town houses: one for the Duke of Devonshire in Corn Market, still partly standing and one for his kinsman the Duke of Newcastle.

Newcastle, a grandson of Bess of Hardwick, was a grandee who also owned Bolsover Castle, Welbeck in Nottinghamshire, Ogle Castle in Northumberland and Slingsby in Yorkshire, the latter built for his scientist brother and now a pathetic ruin. As a courtier, he also had a town house in London, which sadly failed to survive.

After the Restoration he built his Nottingham town house, using the remains of the slighted Castle, its renowned splendour destroyed when it was gutted by reform rioters in 1832. The family later donated the shell to the town and it was converted by T C Hine into a Museum.

In Derby, the Earl had no need to build, for he had inherited from his father a large brick Tudor house on the north side of Derby Market Place which was built either by Bess of Hardwick or by her fourth husband, George Talbot 5th Earl of Shrewsbury. Its true history was only fully

Right top: A 19th century drawing of the spectacular ceiling when complete. The escutcheons adjacent to the chimney breasts once bore the Cavendish arms: three silver caboshed bucks’ heads on a black grond [M Craven].

Right bottom: The remains of the ‘Great Room’ ceiling in the Assembly Rooms Darwin Suite [M Craven]

revealed when it was most regrettably demolished to make way for the City’s Assembly Rooms, now hors de combat The land adjoining the streets of the town, from its foundation in the 10th century, was divided into long strips with short frontages, which were rented out to the town’s free traders or burgesses in return for services and money. Medieval houses therefore were built with their narrow end to the road, where a shop was built and their long sides at right angles with an access up one side of the plot. Look at any old map of the town and you will see their fossilised boundaries.

Later, as the Corporation got poorer and the tradesmen richer, these plots were sold as freeholds and landed gentlemen along with the most opulent merchants bought up adjoining plots so that they could build fashionable houses with their long side to the street and eschew the shop element completely.

So it was with what (by 1635) was called Newcastle House. In the 15th

century, one of the three burgage plots on which it was subsequently erected was occupied by a fairly substantial merchant’s house, timber framed, three storeys high and L-shaped. When in the 1570s or thereabouts Lord Shrewsbury (or his building-obsessed wife, Bess) built a town house to enable their attendance at functions in Derby, this plot was amalgamated with two adjacent ones and the house built, incorporating the late Medieval house at its NE rear angle, probably to act as service accommodation. Its existence is attested by a number of letters written from Derby by Lord Shrewsbury in the 1580s.

What this house then looked like can only be guessed at. In 1971, during demolition, it was noticed that the bricks of the building were certainly Tudor. Presumably it was three stories high, six bays of mullioned and transomed windows set between decorative brick string courses, with attic gables to the street front. The main rooms, as usual with prestige Tudor houses would have been on the first floor, attested by the enhanced

Left: The rear passage showing part of the Tudor House. [the late R G Hughes] Right bottom: The Tudor House exposed by demolition, 1971. [the late R G Hughes]

ceiling height still discernable in the building’s declining years. The great room, we know from its partial survival to 1971, stretched the whole 38ft width of the building on the first floor and was 16ft wide. The architect might even have been the renowned Robert Smythson, who designed Bess’s houses, Hardwick Hall, Oldcotes and Blackwall not to mention her tomb in the Cathedral, and who had been the architect of Wollaton, Worksop and Longleat.

During the Civil War the Earl backed the King who was a personal friend, went into exile with Charles II and lost a large part of his estates and fortune in consequence, receiving a marquessate for his pains for, after all, the impoverished king could bestow peerages at no cost to himself. At the Restoration, the new Marquess of Newcastle was in debt and was forced to let his Derby house to the locally born upper class doctor, Sir John Shore (an ancestor of Indian nabob, Lord Teignmouth), who paid tax on a whopping 18 hearths in 1670.

Newcastle had received some of his

estates back at the Restoration, but not all and was compensated for this

by Charles II raising him to a dukedom which was also in recognition of his loyalty during the exile. He was in consequence known as the ‘Loyall Duke of Newcastle’.

With his losses and debts under control by the 1680s, the new Duke was embellishing his country seat, Bolsover and building Nottingham Castle. At Derby he already had a town house, and resolved merely to up-date it. He removed the gables, substituting a parapet, balustrade and attic dormers, inserting classical-style windows which broke through the old string courses. The great room was re-panelled in cedar and acquired unusual stencilled decoration, whilst the ceiling was decorated with lavish plasterwork in five recessed panels centered on a vast oval of fruit and leaves with the family armorials at the ends. This was much in the style of two stuccadori and carvers of national standing, Edward Goudge and Edward Pearce (then working at Sudbury), who might well have been involved, especially if the Duke used the same architect as at Newcastle and Bolsover to re-front the building, Samuel Marsh.

By 1741, the house had descended through the Holles, Harley and Cavendish-Bentinck families, although somewhere along the line it had ceased to be used as the family’s town house. The hereditary high stewardship and Lord Lieutenancy passed after 1691 to the Cavendish Dukes of Devonshire, whilst the later inheritors of Newcastle’s estates re-focused on Nottingham. Thus the house was probably let. In 1745 it was the home of Alderman and ex-Mayor Joshua Smith, a rich apothecary with whom Bonnie Prince Charlie’s general John Gordon of Glenbuchat (1675-1750) lodged 4th- 6th December 1745.

Later it was the printing works of Richardson &

Handford who went bust in 1826, although the freehold remained with Joseph Handford. He was foreclosed on by the banker Archer Swinburne in 1838 and it was sold to Alderman John Sandars a grocer, two years later, being subdivided (to the detriment of part of the ceiling of the Great Room, which became two, losing 2/5ths of itself in the process) and shop-fronted, moving into the twentieth century as Kay’s shop by which time it had lost its dormers and later the balustrade went too.

It survived, listed grade II as a much mangled remnant, until pulled down for the erection of the present Assembly Rooms in 1971, but was unrecognised to the last. When the building was being demolished it was not fully recorded photographically nor by note nor measurement (as the Council were theoretically obliged to do). Yet it became clear that the shell was indeed Tudor, two light mullioned windows appearing in the rear upper fabric.

The 15th century timber framed merchant’s house, left to its rear as a service wing, was rescued by the Museum and partly re-erected in Old Blacksmith’s Yard, but was emasculated by the planners. The grand ceiling (or what remained of it) was put up in the Darwin Suite of the new Assembly Rooms.

Truly this was a lost treasure and, had its import or even existence been recognised before 1967, a re-listing to grade I might have averted its destruction.

Below: The ‘Great Room’ after subdivision, the central oval being visible, left. The Jacobean panelling was moved from elsewhere in the house to cover the new wall and hide the scars of division.

[Derby Museums Trust ]

The Lost Houses of Derbyshire

The Field, Litchurch

The Field, south front, shortly prior to demolition, c1969 [Private collection] Above: The Field, entrance front in 1935 [M Craven] Below: The interior c1969, showing the view from the front door. The ornamental balustrade of the staircase has already been stolen [Derby Museums Trust]

I

n its declining years, this suburban Regency Villa was known merely as 237 Osmaston Road, Derby on the thoroughfare of the ancient pre-Roman route south of Derby towards Swarkestone Bridge. This was a place which in the early 19th century was still extremely rural; one has the description by Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) of the fields surrounding the home in which he grew up, in newly-built Wilmot Street, as testimony to the bucolic character of the area.

Here in Litchurch, which was absorbed by the Borough of Derby in the 1880s, stood Joseph Strutt’s ‘summer villa’ the pleasure grounds which in 1840 he gave to the Borough as the Arboretum and it was just to the east of the Arboretum that the next earliest villa was built, sometime in the early 1820s. This was The Field.

Although it has been demolished for some fifty years, it has not been previously chronicled, but surely deserves to be. It was never the town residence of a landed family, but the spacious residence of a number of prominent Derby families.

Before it was demolished it was listed Grade III, which was the lowest grade, later abolished, with all surviving Grade III buildings being either promoted to Grade II or relegated to the Local List.

The house was originally of three by three bays, two storeys high, and constructed of ashlared blocks of Keuper sandstone from Weston Cliff on the Trent, rather than the ubiquitous Roman Cement of other contemporary villas. Clearly the person who commissioned the house was making a statement about the state of his bank balance! The centre bays all the main fronts broke forward slightly under a low parapet in a very restrained Neo-Greek manner.

Parkfields Cedars, Leaper’s own house, seen on a 1917 postcard [M Craven]

It was architecturally sophisticated too, with the floor heights of the ground floor greater on the south and east fronts and at the entrance front, where the hall ran right through house to dog-leg staircase under two depressed arches, ceiling heights were lower giving a more spacious feel to the master suite above.

The service wing was to the north, although later an extension beside the entrance and incorporating part of it, was added to provide an extra reception room. On the east side an almost free standing top-lit billiard room was built on much later in the 19th century.

The interior focused on the long hallway, the layout closely resembling that at Leaper’s Highfields, the space being broken into three sections divided by depressed arches supported on pilasters and decorated with egg-and-date plaster moulding. The cornices were all of ornamental modillions and the main reception room was stuccoed in French Baroque manner, like the Headmaster’s study at The Pastures and Parkfield House (also lost) on Duffield Road. The dog-leg staircase had an ornamental cast iron balustrade, undoubtedly made by the Derby foundry of Weatherhead, Glover & Co in Duke Street. They probably also made the cast iron sliding jalousies which once protected the windows but were removed in the 1942 scrap metal drive.

The grounds were originally fairly extensive and landscaped, declining towards a small lake just west of London Road, although as the 19th century went on chunks were disposed of to provide housing. Indeed after the construction of a further pair of villas the street was lined during the 1840s and ‘50s with well-proportioned brick terraced housing, the Arboretum proving a draw for those

wishing to live in the style then referred to as genteel. Yet the down side for the occupiers of The Field must have been the erection of the Union Workhouse (now the Royal Crown Derby factory) on the meadow opposite.

The building is firmly attributable to an amateur architect, Alderman Richard Leaper, the third son of William Leaper JP (1713-1784) a banker in partnership with a kinsman, Robert Newton of Mickleover.

Leaper’s father had served as Mayor of Derby in 1776-1777 and in 1753 had married Sarah Ward, sister of Archer Ward, also on the bank’s board and a keen Baptist. Richard, born in 1759, was educated at Derby School, becoming a brother of the Corporation in 1790 and elected Mayor in 1794-95 then an alderman shortly thereafter. He served as Mayor again in 1807, 1815 and 1824, by which time he was, like his father before him, also a partner in the bank. He lived initially at 59 Friar Gate, Derby but after 1817 at a house of his own devising, Parkfield Cedars, Kedleston Road (also regrettably a lost house), which bore many features in common with The Field, where he died, unmarried, in 1838.

As an architect, the Derbyshire historian Stephen Glover, who knew him, averred (writing in 1831) that he “has had great taste and much experience in building family mansions…” going on to a number of other houses he had designed.

The building dates lies somewhere between 1819 and 1824 and the client was Francis Severne, a manufacturing jeweller with premises in Corn Market.

On his death, his son Henry moved over the road to build Ashtree House and The Field (then called Litchurch Field) was sold to silk manufacturer, Henry

Boden of Ednaston Lodge (1807-1862), whose wife was the sister of Sir John (‘Brassy’) Smith. He later moved to The Friary and let the house to the Midland Railway’s eminent engineer William Henry Barlow FRS (1812-1902) who lived there until 1857 when he moved to London to design St Pancras Station and the main line from Derby. His successor, John Sidney Crossley, another civil engineer, occupied the house thereafter until around 1871 when Alderman Sir Abraham Woodiwiss (1828-1884), a multimillionaire railway contractor acquired it.

He probably added the NW extension (done in brick and stuccoed over, hence the rendering of the remainder of the street front to unite, visually, the disparity) and the billiard room. He served two consecutive terms as Mayor, in 1880-1 and 1881-2, but moved to another Leaper House, The Pastures in Littleover, around 1880 and died there, leaving his son Abraham, junior (1852-1912) in residence at The Field; he too was mayor twice, in 1888 and 1901.

In 1895 young Abraham moved out and let the house to Hull-born Cllr George Edward Franklin, proprietor of the Public Benefit Boot & Shoe Company who lived there for more than a decade before leaving Derby for pastures new.

In between the wars it became the Derby High School for Girls, then after the Second War the School moved to Littleover and the Borough (later County) Fire Brigade used the house as their HQ. In 1971 the Fire Service followed the High School to Littleover and the house became empty and was sold with its surviving ground (by this date mainly surfaced for car-parking) for redevelopment to the Guinness Trust.

The Lost Houses of Derbyshire

by Maxwell Craven

Wheston Hall

Wheston-in-Peak

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realise that knowledgeable readers will read this heading and exclaim that Wheston Hall is not a lost house at all and still stands.

Yet the rather mauled remnant which survived the collapse of much of the fabric in a gale in 1952 is largely a new house which made ingenious use of some surviving parts of the original.

In truth, the house was never a modest affair and although we have no idea what it originally looked like before the 18th century, the house that emerged from a thorough rebuilding in 1726-1727 does provide us with some clues.

Above: The hall as photographed by Richard Keene on his famous photographic tour of Derbyshire in 1858 and included in many of his souvenir photographic compilations [M Craven]

The earliest person of some standing to have been recorded as living at Wheston was Thomas Browne in 1362. We do not have much information about him, although it would be safe to assume he held some royally-appointed regulatory post relating to lead extraction. After that there is a lacuna of over a century before we encounter Thomas Alleyne there, whose wife Elizabeth may well have brought him the estate at Wheston, in which case she may have been the Browne heiress. Thomas himself was the third son of John Alleyne of Stanton-inPeak, descended in all probability from Robert Alyn of Winster living in 1277. The elder branch of the family continued at Stanton Woodseats and elsewhere in Stanton for many generations. Thomas’s son Thurstan was Bailiff and Receiver of the High Peak and by his wife, a

Garlick of Glossop, was progenitor of the Alleynes of Wheston along with junior branches at Derby and Loughborough.

Lees in Hope, not so far away. A similar tower house is thought to form the core of the hall at Great Longstone too.

The family grew rich in the unpredictable business of lead extraction and trading.

Sometime in Queen Elizabeth’s reign, but before 1592 when they were fined for Catholic recusancy, they appear to have built a new house. A substantial fragment of this house remained embedded in the building that fell in 1952. It was a rectangular tower house of carboniferous limestone rubble brought to course with millstone grit long-and-short quoins, similar dressings to the mullioned windows with cranked hood moulds and for the string courses. It was at least three storeys and may have had a gabled top, like that surviving at Cutthorpe Old Hall, or parapeted like a larger version of North

In photographs of the main façade of the house it can easily be identified as the left hand projection, with its much more irregular quoins, asymmetrical window spacings and greater dimensions than its right hand counterpart. Behind it latterly, was a jumble of near-irreconcilable fragments, extraordinarily difficult to interpret.

The Alleynes were Catholics and adherents of the Dukes of Norfolk, at that time major landowners in the Dark Peak and also major investors in the lead trade. The house may have been again rebuilt, in order to enlarge it, in the years preceding the Civil War, for

the very striking baroque faรงade put on in the 1720s strongly suggests that a second tower was probably built with an intervening perhaps gabled range, with two stair towers inwards from the end-towers which probably featured crenelated tops like those at Wingerworth Old Hall and Barlborough Old Hall, both seemingly designed by John Smythson (of Bolsover Castle fame) or someone closely associated with him.

Soon after this, the family divided into two lines and it is possible that the house was also divided with both families living under one roof, a common compromise at the time. With two staircases, the house was certainly suitable for division.

Yet early in the 18th century, both branches failed virtually simultaneously and half the property, along with its lead-rich estate, passed to a kinsman, Thomas Alleyne of Loughborough (a scion of the Derby branch of the family) and half to the two daughters and coheiresses of the other Alleyne branch. Of these, one was married to a Fleetwood and the other to a wily Sheffield attorney, Thomas Freeman. He set about uniting the estate in his own person, elbowing Thomas Alleyne aside on the grounds of his Catholic faith and likewise neutralising

Wheston Hall

Above: The house after the collapse, 1952. [M Craven] Below: The new house, showing the portions remaining from its predecessor [J Bell]

& the winter of 1952 Fleetwood, whose mother was a Catholic Eyre of Hassop.

Freeman thereafter set about modernising his new seat at Wheston, unifying the building with a new Georgian façade which receded in two stages from the corner pavilions to incorporate the old stair towers and culminating in a centrepiece of two bays flanking a rather inconsequential and marginally off-centre entrance; the visual strength of the remainder, marked only by an oeilde-boeuf on the parapeted upper storey.

A pair of Baroque gate piers marked the entrance from the road, topped by pineapples (long a symbol of welcome) flanked by an ornamental timber fence on a dwarf wall.

The anonymous person who designed this clearly had flair, but probably lacked formal architectural training, as he would have made much more of the centrepiece. Probably it was an experienced builder recruited from Sheffield. If so, his hand can be seen elsewhere in the Peak, at Winster Hall (c1715), Shallcross Hall (1723-35) and certainly at Norton House, Norton (1733) as all share characteristics of Wheston.

Unfortunately we have no record of the interior, but no doubt it had some pretension, as witness accounts of the

saloon at Winster.

Freeman also laid out an avenue from the front door into a small park that he formed from his own land, ending in a further pair of gate piers, although today the avenue has mainly long gone and few trees survive from the avenue itself which is now is a narrow wall-flanked lane.

When Thomas’s son Robert died unmarried in 1763, the property passed through heiresses of the Charltons and then the Maxwells of Meir, Staffordshire, who let it, as did the Dukes of Norfolk to whom the house and estate were eventually bequeathed about two centuries ago. The Duke made it the home of the agent for his White Peak estates, John Allen but in 1827 sold it all to the 6th Duke of Devonshire as part of a rationalisation of the two ducal estates in this part of the county.

Following a period let to a lawyer called William Henry Cheek, the Devonshire estate turned it into a farm which it has remained to this day. In the 19th century it was farmed by the Wrights and then the Bradleys. Unfortunately, the post 1929 depression and then the second war meant that maintenance was at first a fiscal challenge and thereafter an impossible one and in one of the

great gales of the winter of 1952 the whole of the North West portion of the house collapsed, fortunately without any injuries. Apparently the tenants lived mainly in the older part of the house, which remained standing, probably because its Tudor fabric was constructed in a much sturdier fashion that the later west part.

The house, although then but recently listed, was partly cleared and the rest patched up in rather an ad hoc fashion but, in 1960 it was sold. The new owners used some of the standing walls to build a replacement house, although oddly the solid old Tudor tower was mainly removed along with most of the collapsed section, including the top floor,.

The west stair tower (which had been damaged in the collapse) was shortened and retained, but the east projection was elided and the house today stands as a fairly plain two storey building with a pitched roof and six irregular bays. Part of the Tudor fabric was retained to form a byre and equipment store.

Although not technically a completely lost house it still deserves a place in this series as the original house bears little resemblance to the replacement, having been greatly reduced in size as you can see by comparing the pictures. However, it is refreshing that some of its history has been preserved.

Left: Wingerworth Old Hall, built 1630s probably by John Smythson, from an oyster veneered marquetry table in the V&A. Note the crenellated projecting stair towers on the north front, just as at Wheston [Victoria and Albert Museum]

THE LOST HOUSES OF DERBYSHIRE

Littleover Old Hall

by Maxwell Craven

A late Elizabethan house of some architectural pretension

There is still a Littleover Old Hall standing in our leafy Derby suburb, as any member of the community would be only too pleased to inform you. Yet the house that now acts as the centrepiece of the HQ of the Derbyshire Fire & Rescue Service, hemmed in as it is by utilitarian modern buildings, is a building of 1891, erected to the design of Alexander MacPherson for businessman Edward MacInnes. Prior to that however, there was a house of some architectural pretension on the site that dated to the late Elizabethan era, of which few are aware.

Littleover was never a separate manorial estate, but was part of the great manor of Mickleover, as was Findern and the deserted medieval village of Potlock. It had all been given to endow the Abbey of Burton by its founder, the Saxon thegn Wulfric Spot in 1002. By the 14th century though, much land in Findern, Potlock and Littleover had been in the tenancy of the Fynderne family since the early 12th century.

In the 16th century, an opulent lawyer of Staffordshire family, Sir Richard Harpur, married Jane daughter of George Fynderne of Findern, thereby acquiring some land at Swarkestone in the settlement, subsequently purchasing much more of that family’s property both there and elsewhere, including an estate at Littleover and the Manor of Breadsall Upper Hall. When the last member of the Fynderne family died without issue, Sir Richard’s wife became the heiress, so he also acquired the remainder of the family’s estates, including Findern and Potlock.

Sometime in the 1580s, Sir Richard’s second son, also called Sir Richard Harpur (whose 1635 monument is still to be admired in the parish church), was granted the Littleover estate by his elder brother on his marriage 1588 to a daughter of Thomas Reresby of Thryburgh in Yorkshire. It was probably him who built a house there around the the mid-1590s and presumably there was a previous house on the site, in which he lived beforehand, but of it we know nothing at all.

The Old Hall as depicted by James Rolfe and copied in 1873 [Courtesy B Cahill, Esq, Derbyshire Fire & Rescue]

The Harpurs flourished at Littleover until the senior male line died out with 32 year old John Harpur in 1754. His sister had married Samuel Heathcote, a Jacobean Derby alderman and successful lead trader. His descendants lived there until a grandson inherited The Pastures, a newish house situated further west along the Roman road to Burton-on-Trent. They let the old hall as a farm, retaining it and much of the estate after moving to

There are only a limited number of clues as to what the house was like?

Raleigh in Devon in the 1840s. Yet they only sold the hall in 1890 and the residue of the estate in Littleover and nearby in 1920. Indeed, it was this release of land in the village which enabled it to expand over the following two decades.

What was the house like? We only have a limited number of clues. One is the hearth tax assessment of 1670, which records that Richard Harpur (Jr) was assessed for this tax on ten hearths, which suggests a house of medium size comparable with the manor houses at Locko, Duffield Park, Barton Blount and Weston-on-Trent, only the last of which survives in anything like the form it had in that era. We also have two paintings, one ostensibly of 1873 and another done about 15 years later, both of which show the building after major changes had taken place.

Finally there are pieces of written evidence: inventories, legal documents and a few descriptions. Of the latter, the earliest is that of William Woolley (c1713) who unhelpfully said that it was ‘a large old house’, whilst James Pilkington described it as a fine old house in a ‘high and pleasant situation’. William

Hutton, writing in 1791 was more critical.

‘Nothing,’ he wrote, ‘can be said in favour of this house except its antiquity: but everything may be in favour of its situation, which is charming beyond conception.’ The Lysons in 1817 call it a ‘good old mansion’ and inform us that Bache Heathcote was still living in it.

The 1873 picture, which still hangs in the house today, was copied from an original (marked ‘after J. Rolfe 1873’) which was presumably in the possession of the Heathcotes. The question here is whether the house shown was as standing in 1873 or as it was when James Rolfe painted it, probably c1820. As the 1880’s painting shows a brick two storey Regency farm house with no towers and contemporary maps, a house with a footprint which was a simple rectangle, one has to assume that the painting is of the house as it was rather than in 1873; this must be the date of the copy.

What the picture shows is a house in transition, from a glorious Elizabethan swagger-house to workaday farm. From the original build remains two square castellated three storey towers, lit by tiers of three light mullioned windows and embellished by a pair of tall brick

Holme Hall, Bakewell about ten years ago, south front. Much of the house has been rebuilt at least twice, but the part to the left is largely as built.

Above: The Old Hall c1888, from an anonymous watercolour [Miss F Wright] Right : Wingerworth Old Hall, marquetry from a table top, c1670. Here there are two towers, seen on the opposite side of the house, behind the main range [Victoria & Albert Museum]

More clues‌

Littleover Old Hall Tudor chimney stacks. One tower boasts a quoined Gothic door in the base, which I cannot believe is in its original position, but could have been a fragment of the Medieval house, retained out of sentiment.

The house may originally have sported two further towers on the north side and each may have been capped by a domed lantern, as at Dodington in Lincolnshire, essentially a mark two Hardwick, by Robert Smythson in 1600.

It gives a flavour of what Littleover would have looked like, especially as its parapets would probably also have been crenellated. Originally the entire building would have been of three storeys, the rooms of the uppermost one higher than those below, as was then the fashion.

An illustration of Wingerworth Old Hall (demolished in 1723) also gives an impression of the sort of house we are looking at but of only two storeys. The only surviving house which gives one some impression of what Littleover would have looked like is Holme Hall, near Bakewell of 1636.

The structure behind the towers in the picture, however, appears as a brick two storey rectangular building, two bays

deep and as we know from the other picture (painted after the destruction of the towers) probably five bays wide with a later projecting gabled wing at the west end. It looks early 19th century in date.

The demolition of the original great hall range (and the other pair of towers, if they existed) probably took place after Hutton wrote in 1791 and prior to c1825, for a fine Hopton Wood stone chimneypiece and overmantel, clearly from the Old Hall, if somewhat prettied up, was built into The Pastures nearby when that estate reverted to the Heathcotes at about that time. If the Fire Service painting really depicts the house as it was c1820, then it is anybody’s guess when the towers were finally removed, for on the surviving maps the house is shown uniformly rectangular.

The prototype for this house, assuming it stood roughly on the footprint of its precursor, has to be Elizabeth Shrewsbury’s great house at Hardwick, designed by Robert Smythson and built from 1592. There we find six towers, all studiously positioned away from the angles of the house, just as those at Littleover appear to have been.

Another related design by Smythson (but probably not built) was the hall at

Blackwall-in-Peak designed c1593 for Sir Charles Cavendish, one of Bess of Hardwick’s sons. It was close in size to Littleover with four towers recessed from the angles, but on a much squarer plan. Dodington was a development of the Hardwick template, and houses like Wingerworth and Holme were spin-offs copied by imitators over the following generation.

Whatever its inspiration, the rather modest mullioned windows would seem to suggest that Sir Richard used a local mason rather than Robert Smythson himself. Nevertheless, had it survived intact, it would have been one of the important group of faux castles and ‘high houses’ like those to which I have compared it, not to mention the much grander Bolsover, Wollaton, Worksop Manor Lodge and Barlborough, for which our part of the Midlands is famed.

Although a single chimneypiece survives, it is astonishing other fragments have not been re-used: the (no doubt) fine oak staircase, the doorcases, pinnacles, stained glass, panelling and other details. solus Perhaps they have and nobody has realised where they’re from!

Left: Dodington, the towers.

Although the house is a storey taller than Littleover, the towers with their (later) lanterns give a good impression of how Littleover Old Hall must have looked in the 18th century [M Craven]

The Lost Houses of Derbyshire

by Maxwell Craven

Bearwardcote Hall

Drawing of the new house by William Fairbank who surveyed the estate for Robert Newton in 1765 [Sheffield City Archives]

Bearwardcote (pronounced ‘Barrowcote’), lies on the edges of Burnaston and Etwall, just north of the Derby to Uttoxeter Road.

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oated Manor houses are relatively rare in Derbyshire, although several well known houses like Egginton, Radburne and Shipley Halls were certainly moated once, but the fashion for naturalistic landscape gardens in the 18th century led to their being enthusiastically filled in by landscape gardeners. Other sites are remembered by ‘moat’ place names.

The great age of the moat was from the period of the Barons’ War c1250 to the end of the first third of the 14th century and contrary to general assumptions, most were status symbols rather than effective defensive barriers. Only when the house had been subject to a licence to crenellate from the Crown could one be reasonably certain that a moat was part of a proper defensive scheme.

The former hall at Bearwardcote (pronounced

‘Barrowcote’), which lies on the edges of Burnaston and Etwall, just north of the Derby to Uttoxeter Road, was once moated, although it was never subject to a licence to crenellate. The estate had its origins in the de Chambreis family, believed to have been a junior branch of the de Ferrers Earls of Derby, The estate passed eventually to the Bakepuises of Barton Bakepuise (later Barton Blount) and under them William de Heanor (whose family

took their name from Rough Heanor, in Mickleover) had it as tenant by 1927so he must have been the man who built the house and moated it round. His heiress brought it to John de Rochford and he in turn left two co-heiresses. In 1397 a reference in a legal document reported that the house was ‘moated round’ and in 1402 the estate was sold to Francis Bonington (of the family which gave their name to Sutton Bonington), whose descendants remained there to the later part of the 17th century.

The Hearth Tax assessment of a mere four hearths in 1664 suggests it was then a small manor house, almost certainly timber framed. The low number of hearths at that date for gentry houses tended to indicate that the house was old and had a great hall containing a single large fireplace, with perhaps two heated rooms off it and a kitchen elsewhere.

Where such halls were split to divide them horizontally, further fireplaces were usually provided. The family never seem to have had the wherewithal to greatly modernise the house and an attempt to do so in the 1590s or 1600s (with other works on the estate in Burnaston village)

by Ralph Bonington seems only to have plunged the estate into debt and he himself was imprisoned for this in 1623.

The continuing debts (exacerbated by the punitive fines levied by Parliament for supporting the King in the Civil War) eventually in 1672 caused the sale of the manor to the wily family lawyer, William Turner of Derby (d.1716), but the Hall continued to be occupied by the widowed Mary Bonington until her death in 1680. Her inventory describes the Hall as ‘a good House moted round with a Bridge of Stone and Gatehouse… two Orchards and a fair garden and a

little Stable all lying within a Mote…. a Dourhouse [Dower house] and two Barns lying without….’

The man who benefited from all this was Derby Alderman William Turner. He had married Mary daughter of Roger Allestrey of Derby MP and on his death was succeeded by his son, also William (1703-1751), from whom the manor was to pass to his son Exuperius, born about 1725. Exuperius was educated at Westminster and St John’s Cambridge and in 1748 he was called to the bar.

Exuperius Turner, newly married in 1751, seems to have gone to town and built himself a delightful villa in the most upto-date version of Rococo Gothick. The entrance was via a projecting crenellated portico with pinnacles and was flanked by a pair of ogiform gables. The two storeys were parapetted with battlements

Above: Remains of the moat bridge, photographed by Don Farnsworth 1984 [M Craven]

and further punctuated with slender pinnacles and tall chimneys. He also, according to a brief (and retrospective) description in Bagshaw’s Directory of 1846, installed heraldic glass in his lancet windows – or at least perhaps rescued and re-set pre-existing glass from the Medieval house. The roof appears to have been of expensive Swithland slate and the outbuildings were probably not particularly ancient appearing to have been of brick. The gatehouse was probably timber framed, from the lack of brick or stone excavated from its position.

The entire building appears to have been an essay in the picturesque. Archaeology carried out nearly 40 years ago seems to indicate that the medieval gatehouse was suffered to survive, along with the bridge over the moat. An attempt to match the rooms named in the inventory to the ground plan recovered in the excavation is however, not to be relied upon because the excavator was not aware of the mid18th century rebuilding, which may have been very thorough and although the footprint of the medieval house appears to have been used, it is exceedingly unlikely that the original plan would have been adhered to.

It is difficult to say who would have designed so spectacular a house.

The obvious candidate is Sanderson Miller (1717-1780), who was certainly working at Arbury Hall in Warwickshire at this period with the owner Sir Roger Newdigate. Sir Roger was married to a Mundy of Shipley and had an uncle married to a Pole of Radburne, both families for whom Exuperius’s father had acted in his legal capacity, so there is every reason to think that they could have been at least acquainted.

Miller himself was an amateur and a keen Gothicist. The inspiration for the house is plainly Horace Walpole’s astonishing Strawberry Hill, which has virtually identical pinnacles, crenellation and fenestration. The design of pinnacles come from Arbury and the ogiform gables and disposition of the façade appear at Prestwood Hall (now long demolished) near Stewpony in Staffordshire, which might also indeed be Miller’s work and date from just this period.

The Turners lived at Bearwardcote from its completion soon after their marriage but the couple’s marriage was dissolved in 1760 and no doubt the house lost its allure for Exuperius after this. He eventually left the house and moved to London, leaving the manor and lordship of ‘Barrowcote’, plus 183 acres of arable, meadow and pasture to be offered for

sale in the Derby Mercury in 1764.

Robert Newton of Mickleover was the man who purchased the house and its modest estate. He was proprietor of Leaper & Newton’s Bank, Derby (later Crompton & Newton) and was old, exceedingly rich and lived at Norton on the north east corner of Derbyshire. Sir Francis Chantrey, the famous sculptor was born in a farmhouse on his estate.

Newton rented the Hall out as a farm and died unmarried in 1789, leaving his estate to John Leaper, a colleague in the bank, who added the name of Newton.

He clearly had other ideas about his Bearwardcote property and proceeded to demolish the Hall in 1790, building Bearwardcote Farm north-west of the moat instead. It became an adjunct of the Mickleover estate and so remained until its dispersal in 1937.

Today all that is left in the tangled bocage which occupies the site (to which there is no public access) are clear traces of the moat and the remains of the bridge, photographed for me by my late friend Don Farnsworth four days after Christmas 1984. And just think: if the Turner’s marriage had been a happy and fruitful one, the house might still be standing today.

Bearwardcote Hall - influences and designer

Left: Prestwood Hall, Staffs, built c1750 from a postcard [M Craven]

BEAMISH OPEN AIR MUSEUM Brian Spencer travels north for a day out at the multi-award winning

museum of bygone northern life A signpost off the A693 points the way to the Beamish Living Museum of the North, a recreation of northern industrial life as it was around the turn of the twentieth century. The minor road leads past the Shepherd and Shepherdess, a Georgian public house with two romantically styled figures for its inn sign.

Beyond the pub the way to the museum is beneath the massive frame of a forge hammer.

With check-in formalities over, we climbed aboard a 1930’s tramcar on loan, we were pleased to note, from Crich Tramway Museum. Running round the perimeter of the site it is possible to hop on and hop off whenever something takes your fancy; we travelled as far as Town Street, the museum’s pride and joy; a collection of houses and businesses that were moved lock stock and barrel from their original sites throughout the

North East. On the right as you descend from the tram is a coop store that once supplied the needs of folk living at nearby Annfield Plain. This was the hey-day of co-operatives, when stores sold everything from drapery and miners’ tools (as they were not provided by colliery owners) to groceries and for modern tastes, a sweetshop offering delights made behind the shop. Not necessarily the cheapest stores, co-ops did have the advantage of selling fair quality and of course, they paid a dividend at the end of the year.

Standing next to the co-op is a typical town garage which was basically an improved blacksmith’s shop, catering for every form of mobility from bicycles to early motor cars. Petrol was dispensed from two-gallon cans and repairs were made on the spot. Across the road is a fine row of Victorian houses; called Ravensworth Terrace which came from Bensham in Gateshead.

These were fashionable houses in their day, occupied by professionals such as the music teacher who lived and taught in the parlour of number 2. Fully furnished like all the others

GENERAL INTERESTS

Main picture: Hot Cross Buns made on the coal range.

Top left: Dentist’s Surgery.

“This won’t hurt a bit sir…”

Top right: Annfield Plain Co-operative.

Middle: The band stand.

Bottom: Public transport in Town Street (on loan from Crich Tramway Museum).

in the row in the ornate over heavy fashion of the time, it stands next door to a solicitor’s office. This was where J & R S Watson had their practice in the early 1900s. Nothing like a modern office, it is positively Dickensian, without typewriters, duplicators or even a telephone, documents on the senior partner’s desk are tied in pink ribbon.

Fear of visiting the dentist dates back to the time when dentists were little more than tooth-pullers with many holding only the barest of qualifications. A dentist lived at 3 Ravensworth Terrace and it shows how things have improved more recently.

Anaesthetics were unreliable and oil of cloves was often the only means of combating pain. The dentist operated and lived under the one roof; his surgery was in a tiny room on the first floor and looks more like a torture chamber, with its cast-iron chair and foot operated drill. His technician made false teeth in another room, away from the family quarters. Here there is an indoor toilet and bathroom, very much an up to date addition in its day and the nursery is cheerfully set out with children’s toys.

Hopping on and off the trams The Sun Inn, originally from High Bondgate in Bishop Auckland is still fully licensed and dispensing ale as it has done since the 1860s. Next door to it is a still functioning printer’s shop with the town stables to its rear. The imposing structure of a bank stands securely next to where the mysteries of the former Sunderland Masonic lodge are laid bare.

We found it easier to walk rather than chance missing something by hopping on and off the tram. From the park with its traditional bandstand at the end of Town Street, Rowley Station stands at the end of a short track where an early 20th century train chugs to and fro. Steam was very much in evidence on our visit for not only was there the nostalgia of a

Locomotion No.1 A replica of Stephenson’s Rocket

steam train, but next to it was a roundabout of galloping horses driven by a steam engine. This early method of propulsion was echoed by dozens of steam traction engines and lorries happily filled the air with their smoke as they trundled slowly around the site. A slight rise made its way to Home Farm; a ‘model farm’ in its day, it is still run, albeit on a smaller scale, as it did when the estate was owned by the Eden and Shafto families.

Sir Anthony Eden, who followed Sir Winston Churchill as Prime Minister in the post war government, was a descendant of that family and the most memorable was Bonnie Bobbie Shafto as commemorated in the Geordie ditty of that name.

Slightly below the farm and across the access road, a group of single-storied terrace cottages, the schoolhouse, a Methodist Chapel and pit-head machinery are the true to life replicas of those found in a typical Durham mining village at the turn of the 20th century. While the pit-head gear has come from outside the immediate area, the drift mine close to the centre of the village is authentic. It was first opened in 1855 and temporarily reopened in 1921 to serve Beamish Chophill Colliery. Enough of the mine is accessible to let visitors appreciate working conditions in the damp, dirty, confined space. Dating from

the 1860s, the row of pit cottages came from Francis Street, Hetton-le-Hole in County Durham. Housing and coal were provided free as part of a miner’s wages, creating a closeknit community of mutually dependent families linked by the ever present danger of work underground. The cottages are furnished as though it were 1913 when miners’ wages were comparatively high and as a result they could afford to buy expensive furniture. Flush toilets were something only dreamed about and the cottage backyards incorporated ‘netties’ or earth closets, which were emptied by nightsoil men once a week.

Water for drinking and general purposes came from a stand pipe, one for every six houses. Pitmen were keen gardeners and pigeon fanciers; each cottage garden grows the sort of vegetables you might have seen a hundred years ago, but rarely if at all can the leeks manage to compete with the hotly contested monsters still grown on local allotments. Most miners and their families were devoutly religious and 2 Francis Street is furnished as though a Methodist family lived there, while the family at number 3 was Catholic. In sparsely furnished number 4 the widow of a miner killed underground has to bring up her family on a pittance until her sons are old enough to draw adult wages by working underground.

Right top: Davy’s fried fish shop.

Right bottom: Beamish’s working coal mine.

An authentic fish supper, cooked in beef dripping

A belt of Scots Pines separates Pit Village from Pockerley, where an agricultural landscape has been recreated as it would have been in the early 19th century. Animals typical of the time can be seen grazing on the unenclosed fields. No black and white Friesians as of today, but Durham Shorthorn cattle, Teeswater sheep and Cleveland Bay horses, once the mainstay of farm animals in the North East.

The cottages in Pit Village manage to have a lived-in feel about them, from the galvanised tin baths hanging on outside walls, to the mouth watering smell of baking taking place at 3 Francis Street. Pitmen always bathed in front of the blackleaded kitchen range, but some of them refused to wash their backs, believing it would weaken them. Despite the queue outside Davy’s Fried Fish Shop everyone agreed that this was an authentic fish supper; cooked in beef dripping rather than tasteless vegetable oil, far removed from the list of healthy options, the chips were crisp on the outside and fluffy inside and the batter surrounding the cod a few hours from the sea was – well try it yourself! Cooked in a coal-burning range, the massive portions were wrapped not quite in newsprint, but in a very close imitation.

Steam was first used to move coal along waggonways from local collieries to ships waiting at staithes, jetties on nearby rivers. Despite severe competition, George Stephenson was the first to design and build a successful steam locomotive in 1815.

A replica of his Locomotion No.1 now runs sedately along a track below Pockerley Old Hall.

The only ‘modern’ section of Beamish is the fascinating collection of items donated over the years. This is due to the policy of the first museum director, Frank Atkinson, whose motto was ‘if you offer it, we will collect it’. This might sound like the start of a huge pile of unwanted junk, but the policy captured the imagination of people throughout the region, leading to a link between the museum and the local community.

A Return to

Biddulph Grange Garden First spending time in an Italian garden and then travelling to China by way of a Scottish glen, Brian Spencer completed a fascinating spring tour of Biddulph Grange garden by visiting Egypt.

The National Trust property of Biddulph Grange Garden holds a constant fascination for me and I find myself drawn to it in what I consider to be its best seasons. From the point of view of the flowers blooming at those times, these are spring when the well established rhododendrons and azaleas are at their best, and autumn, when the garden’s speciality, dahlias take over creating a kaleidoscope of vibrant colours on flower heads the size of dinner plates.

The garden lies to the north of the Potteries, a relic of the Victorian interest in bringing unusual plants from all over the world and establishing them in idealised surroundings. The garden was first established by James and Maria Bateman and their friend, the marine artist

Edward Cooke. James Bateman was a wealthy industrialist who owned a number of collieries around the Potteries. His wife came from the leading Cheshire Egerton-Warburton family and so between them they were able to indulge in their passion for garden design. Unfortunately this passion almost bankrupted Bateman but not before the trio had developed what was to become their everlasting testimony.

For a garden offering so many different styles and features, Biddulph Grange is surprisingly small, filling a site roughly the shape of a lower case letter ‘b’. It lies to the south and below the house the Batemans built, a typical Victorian mansion now partly used as private apartments.

They laid out the garden in a way that evokes what has been called a ‘world image’, with a

Main picture: House and lake.

Above: The Sunken Garden - restored by the National Trust.

Left: Egyptian influence.

Below: Part of the Chinese Garden.

series of interwoven yet differing gardens within gardens. Using clay models the trio were able to arrange and plan the differing layouts before actually starting to move some of the massive rocks holding the whole thing together. It was probably Bateman who came up with the most unusual of the many unusual features in the garden, the Dahlia Walk, a sunken way that comes into its own every autumn when the flamboyant blooms are at their massive best.

Another unusual and very Victorian feature is the Stumpery, a winding semi-sunken path lined with massed tree stumps.

During the late 1860s, maintaining the garden was getting beyond Bateman’s resources, and also as Maria’s health was declining, they eventually moved to the south coast, to seek

better weather. Bateman passed Biddulph Grange and its garden to his son in 1868, but he only lived there for three years then sold the property in 1871 to Robert Heath, a leading Staffordshire industrialist. Fortunately Heath had the resources to continue the high standard of maintenance the garden demanded and in fact he added further plants, especially hollies that were more popular in Victorian times than now. With the property transferring to Heath’s son, more changes were made, this time to the interior of the house, but it was around this time that disaster struck. In January 1896 a massive fire destroyed most of the house, but luckily it didn’t affect the garden and the house was subsequently rebuilt.

With changing fortunes after the Great War, the

The garden offers so many different styles and features

Main picture: The Italian Garden Above: Formal planting in the Italian Garden.

Right: Part of the Chinese Garden.

Below: The Scottish Glen.

Heaths were forced to sell Biddulph Grange and it became a hospital in 1923. Due to financial constraints when the newly fledged NHS came along, the new owner was unable to spend more than token amounts on the garden and as a result Bateman’s masterwork went into decline, suffering from vandalism, even the Dahlia Walk was completely buried under rubble dumped there during modernising extensions to the hospital. Luckily the garden proved resilient to the neglect it was inevitably suffering and through the efforts of interested groups of far sighted people, the National Trust stepped in and in April 1988 began the massive work of bringing Biddulph Grange Garden back to its former glory.

After all of the work done by the National Trust, what would James Bateman think if he were to return today? Well I am sure he would be delighted to see what has been done in such a comparatively short space of time. Perhaps like me, he would stop on the Western Terrace the best place to take in the vista of flowering bushes backed by what are now the mature woodlands and specimen trees that were once mere saplings in Bateman’s time.

A flight of steps leads down to the long parallel lines of bedding plants and late flowering azaleas that make the Italian Garden – there are even pairs of Irish Junipers emulating Italian Cypresses. Next to it is the lake, a perfect mirror for the house that stands high above the garden. Species of Rhododendrons planted

by Bateman and then later by Robert Heath were in full bloom during our visit and I am sure their original planters would have approved, but I was not sure about the opinion of a small boy who was more interested in the Koi carp lazily searching for tit-bits. Massive boulders of gritstone brought from a nearby quarry give the site a perfectly natural appearance.

These gritstone rocks are used to their best advantage in the Glen, Scotland in miniature where mosses and ferns enjoy the damp microclimate created by a tiny stream flowing towards the lake. A spooky tunnel leaves Scotland and then regaining daylight, bang we were in China. Arguably the most imaginative part of the garden, and certainly one of the most famous if regular pictures of it in National Trust publications are to be a guide, this is a delightful spot where the path leads through a pagodaroofed temple, past a gilded buffalo gazing

serenely from a high alcove and then over a Willow Pattern bridge; enclosing all this is the ‘Great Wall of China’ complete with a brightly coloured Joss House.

The way from China is by a secluded path known as the Stumpery. This is something only the Victorians could have come up with and in a modern vein, is recycling at its best.

The Stumpery as the name suggests, is an interlocking collection of tree stumps, the remains of felled trees. Inevitably the stumps rot and so few if any are the result of work carried out on the directions of Bateman or Heath, but are gradual replacements over the years. At the head of this path there is what is aptly called the Shelter House which looks down on the Dahlia Walk where, during our visit, tulips were just beginning to go past their best. A right turn and we arrived in Egypt, complete with sphinxes and a pyramid made from topiary yews; beneath it and inside a tunnel, the ape god Thoth gazes on passers by. An avenue of Wellingtonias the world’s tallest trees were planted by Bateman at an axis right-angled to the house.

It eventually runs onwards for about half a mile up to the country park run by the Staffordshire

Moorlands District Council, but if you wish to see the Wellingtonias in maturity, regrettably you will need to come back in about another two hundred years, but what a sight they will be!

There is also a woodland walk to one side of the avenue and an Arboretum to the other; both with fully mature trees that will look their best in autumn.

The final ‘piéce de resistance’ is the one best left until autumn. This is the Dahlia Walk where series of beds planted with boldly coloured species of dahlias are set off against a backcloth of dark green yew hedged dramatic background, that give a stage-like effect.

Biddulph Grange Garden is a National Trust property situated off the A527 Stoke/Congleton road north of the town of Biddulph. Open daily all year from 11am. Special events such as guided tours and children’s trails are held on advertised days throughout the year. To find out more, contact by telephone 01782 517999 or by email: biddulphgrange@nationaltrust.org.uk.

There are 400 steps throughout the garden, some of which can be slippery when wet.

The ‘piéce de resistance’ is the Dahlia Walk - at its best during autumn

Hearing about the recent work that has been undertaken at Bolsover Castle prompted Brian Spencer to go and have a look for himself.

Bolsover Castle REVISITED To many people Bolsover still evokes collieries and chemical works, but for good or bad all that is now in the past and the hilltop town and its castle has returned to its early glory.

Approaching from the M1 or Chesterfield, the road climbs steeply from the Doe Lea Valley. This is where the first view of Bolsover Castle never fails to hit the senses as it sits in proud defiance overlooking the vista of fields gradually rising to the distant moors; all of it once the domain of Bolsover Castle’s builders, the Cavendish family.

Bolsover Castle was built mainly by Charles and William Cavendish, son and grandson of the redoubtable Bess of Hardwick, from whom they seemed to have inherited the need to build bigger and better houses. Although there had been a castle on the site from at least the time of William the Conqueror, what they built was more of a fantasy where they could relive the pretend life of

a medieval knightly court. Even though the castle was besieged by Cromwell’s troops during the English Civil War, it never had to withstand direct attack – its inhabitants sensibly negotiated an honourable surrender before a shot was fired.

Although technically highly skilled stone masons with an eye for design rather than architects as in the modern terminology, Charles then William Cavendish used the talents of the Smythson dynasty, top mansion builders of the day. The first part to be built was the ‘Little Castle’, the square four-storied keep-like tower dominating the escarpment skyline. Even though it was probably built on the site of a much earlier tower, it was never intended for military use. Surrounded by a walled garden, this was a place of retirement from the stresses of running a large estate, but mostly for extravagant pleasure, sometimes acting as the stage for plays and music. As an indication of the priorities surrounding the running of the castle, the

A fantasy to relive the life of a medieval knightly court

beer cellar occupies almost half of the basement area nominally devoted to catering. One cannot help but wonder what went on within the privacy of the garden, with its secluded bowers looking out on to a most erotic fountain: latter day comparisons with the Profumo scandals at Cliveden easily come to mind!

It was William who extended the range of buildings beyond the Little Castle. A skilled horseman in the art of manège, a form of modern dressage, he built the Riding House Range which is the first building on the approach from the entrance to the site. To its left is the Terrace Range built by John Smithson (he dropped the ‘y’ from the earlier form of the name), who was greatly influenced by the then fashion for adding Dutch gables in order to break up long outlines of tall buildings. It was here that William Cavendish twice entertained King Charles I and his Queen Henrietta Maria. The king seems to have been attracted to the East Midlands, in particularly Sherwood Forest which he visited twice while staying at William Cavendish’s Welbeck Abbey. It was during the king and queen’s second visit that they came to Bolsover, where a masque, a kind of allegorical play, had been arranged for them.

Entertaining Charles I and Queen Maria Called ‘Love’s Welcome’, the masque was written

by William’s friend the Jacobean playwright Ben Jonson. This was just a part of the lavish entertainment Cavendish put on in order to impress the king with the hope that it would prompt the monarch to award William with a place at court – a wish that was not fulfilled. Costing today’s equivalent of hundreds of thousands of pounds, entertaining the king and queen along with all the hangers on from the surrounding district as well as the royal court almost bankrupted William Cavendish. The event started with a banquet, a sumptuous feast which included 41 types of bird such as peacocks and swans, together with sturgeon. With all this on board, scenes of the masque were performed in different locations in and around the castle. It began in the Pillar Parlour, a room in the Little Castle, where a tenor sang about the Five Senses, while the king and queen ate a light snack of ‘sweetmeats’. They then moved on to the garden and were entertained by the castle’s workmen with a ‘Dance of Mechanickes’. Gluttony did not end there, for yet another banquet arrived, this time appearing as though from heaven, let down by two cupids from one of the balconies, accompanied by a flattering speech from the cupids about the ‘perfect love that existed between the royal pair’.

One cannot help but be sympathetic towards William Cavendish who had to foot the bill for the sycophantic affair; one of the table cloths

Far left: Little Castle Above: The main entrance to Little Castle.

Left: One of the many magnificent fireplaces.

alone cost £160, just a part of almost £15,000.

A disapproving commentator later called it ‘a stupendous entertainment, which (God be thanked) ... no man ever in those days imitated’.

All for nothing in return, but not to be deterred William Cavendish continued to back the Royalist cause, this time disastrously losing at the Battle of Marston Moor in 1644: preferring to smoke his pipe rather than direct the battle. With the castle in Parliamentary hands beyond 1649 and with William hiding in Holland, it took the diplomacy of his son the second Charles to buy back the family estates.

Bolsover Castle today Unlike many castles and grand houses, once it was abandoned by the family, Bolsover Castle managed to survive the ravages of time. One of the reasons is due to the care given to it by the Reverend John Hamilton Gray, Vicar Of Bolsover

when he and his wife made it their home. Finding the place run down and neglected, they set to work to convert it into a Victorian country house, but without altering the overall fabric and design of the place. Whenever items were damaged beyond repair, such as parts of the Venus Fountain, Hamilton put them into storage, or made drawings which subsequently proved useful to later restorers. Such was the improved status of the castle that the fourth Duke of Portland reposed it in order to celebrate his 81st birthday, inviting 2000 guests for an occasion that almost paralleled the visit of King Charles I in 1634.

In Hamilton’s time the Venus fountain was in a poor state. Fortunately he had the foresight to collect as much information about its design as possible, together with fragments of the lead figures surrounding the central feature. As a result and with careful modern sculpting techniques, the fountain is now restored to its former glory – Venus

coyly stands on top looking as though she had just climbed out of the bath; below her are four boys doing what little boys do best and surrounding them are mythical beasts and Roman emperors all spouting water which nowadays arrives by pump.

The really serious work of conservation has come about since the castle came into the ownership of English Heritage. Throughout the last ten years or so, detailed examination, especially of the Little Castle, brought to light many of the methods and designs chosen by Charles and William Cavendish. The flamboyant, almost erotic frescos and star-studded ceilings have been cleaned or replaced with materials closely matching the original: Victorian era paint was carefully removed without damaging the original and replaced with modern versions. Of all the restored rooms, perhaps the Star Chamber is the one deserving the most compliments on its restoration. This was the room where only privileged guests would

Main picture: Little Castle with a view over Chesterfield and the distant moors.

Right - from top to bottom: The restored Venus Fountain.

The Riding School.

The Dutch influenced Terrace Range.

One of the rooms restored to its Regency grandeur.

be invited to enter and now looks exactly as it would have in the 17th century. Light and airy with views out towards the Peak District, together with one of the Little Castle’s elaborate fireplaces, its panelled walls are embellished with paintings of Roman emperors and empresses. Despite all this magnificence, it is the ceiling which gives the room its name that takes the breath away. Unusually for its time, the ceiling is coloured with blue verditer, a by-product of silver refining. Later overlays have been carefully removed and the ceiling repainted with an authentic match to the original; scores of lead stars have been re-gilded, all bringing the room back to its former glory.

Creswell Crags A onetime base camp for hunting expeditions into the Peak District, Creswell Crags are yielding vital information left thousands of years ago.

Brian Spencer recently took a short stroll beneath the ancient crags.

S

cattered across the low lying stretch of countryside east of the M1 between Doncaster and Mansfield, shallow but steepsided limestone gorges almost man-made in appearance, feature in the part agricultural, part industrial landscape. Formed by uplifting and tilting of the limestone strata laid down in tropical seas around 260 million years ago, they have been found to contain some of the finest collections of Ice Age remains in Britain.

an astonishing array of archaeological remains Around 10,000 years ago when through natural global warming, the last great Ice Age was coming to an end, and when Britain still had a land bridge connecting it to Europe, early hunters began to move northwards, following the retreating ice. What we now call the Dark Peak was tundra, a wild landscape of sparse vegetation above a layer of permafrost.

Discoveries of flint arrowheads which have lain in the peat of Bleaklow for thousands of years prove that it was once a fruitful hunting ground.

Much of the credit for preserving such a pristine record of prehistoric activity must be given to the 5th Duke of Portland who created the lake and allowed woodland to develop as a pleasure ground – he also fought off a proposal to route a railway line through the gorge!

Excavations in the shallow caves lining Creswell Crags have yielded evidence that they were used as temporary shelters by the hunter gatherers on their forays north from warmer areas. The tongue-incheek suggestion that the caves were an early version of motorway service stations is a fair comparison, for just like service stations, they were only used as temporary stopping places to and from nearby hunting grounds.

Not only did wandering tribesmen and women shelter in the caves lining the sides of Creswell Crags, but animals nowadays Pin Hole Cave

more often found in Equatorial Africa either used them as their dens, or their remains were washed there after localised flooding.

The remains of bears, giant deer, as well as the teeth of woolly mammoths and rhinoceros along with dwarf horses and even lions have been found. Hyenas, now only found as wild scavengers on the dusty African plains, dragged the remains of their kill into the caves’ dark recesses, where the gnawed bones of their feast still show the marks of their powerful teeth. Fragile snail shells and the bones of tiny creatures such as birds and even pollen grains have been found alongside the larger sized bone remnants, giving a unique record of the pre-historic wild life of the gorge and its surrounding countryside.

Careful excavations over the last couple of centuries, have unearthed an astonishing array of archaeological remains left by the people who camped in the caves more than 10,000 years ago. Simple stone and bone tools have been discovered showing a marked degree of skill acquired by these so-called primitive wanderers, but of all the finds, the most exciting by far have been the number of simple but expressive drawings of animals scratched on the cave walls.

Why these early inhabitants of our island made these drawings is far from clear; a simple explanation could be that they were the records of a hunter boasting of his catch, rather along the lines of a

Robin Hood’s Cave

creswell cave art

Victorian big-game hunter’s stuffed trophies, but more serious thoughts will turn to those of an older hunter describing suitable animals to his children before they too set off on their first hunt. Another suggestion is that the drawings were a way of asking whatever gods the hunters worshipped to help them in the hunt for food. Although the cave drawings are not as dramatic as the painted cave decorations in France or Spain, they do however offer an accurate record about the way these early people lived. Dating the Creswell cave art has not been as easy as say the Palaeolithic cave paintings in French or Spanish caves where the animals were first of all outlined with charcoal before colour was added. At those sites it was comparatively easy to accurately radio carbon date the charcoal, but at Creswell where the outlined drawings are carved and etched into the living rock, a more complex technique known as Uranium series dating gave the information that the minimum age for many of the samples of art were at least 13,000 years old.

Alongside numerous small openings in the limestone crags there are at least six main caves along the crag sides, above the attractively manmade Crag Lake that fills the gorge bottom. Most of the caves have been investigated, originally

by Victorian archaeologists who used picks and

View of the Crags

shovels and even dynamite, seeking only large trophy-like artefacts, but in more recent times scientific research, being more painstaking, has unearthed far more significant results.

Of all the caves to be searched so far, Pin Hole about two-thirds of the way along the northern cliff has, over the years, provided the most information.

As far back as 1875 a number of amateur archaeologists, prompted by the discovery of a young woolly mammoth’s milk teeth, moved huge amounts of debris to dig further into the recesses of the cave. Not being terribly scientific they soon tired of their efforts and it was not until 1924 – 1936 that a small group under the leadership of a trained archaeologist, Leslie Armstrong, discovered numbers of large bones as well as finely worked bone tools. It was not until the 1980s that the latest and most accurate investigations took place and the discovery of flint tools showed that the cave had been used, not just from the end of the last Ice Age, but by Neanderthal people between 55,000 and 40,000 years ago as well. The crude stone tools they made were simply for butchering game, but later cave dwellers developed a more sophisticated art form, not only carving the outlines of animals on the cave sides, but of simple figures or delicate cross-hatchings on rib bones.

All the main caves have been given fanciful

sounding names. One of them is named after Robin Hood and is where if traditional local folklore is correct, he or one of the many characters who took his name, hid when on the run from King Edward II; it was in this cave that researchers found the etching of a horse carved on a rib bone.

Mother Grundy’s Parlour is an adjoining cave where, from its name, a local wise woman, or witch, sheltered in less enlightened times. Almost at the dale head Pin Hole was a place where only a century ago, locals left small offerings such as coloured pins to what they thought were fairies that lived there. Church Hole on the opposite side of the lake was perhaps used by Dissenters for their undercover meetings; it also has yielded quartzite tools dating from the Neolithic period, together with bone needles and awls from later post-Ice Age dwellers.

It is in Pin Hole Cave that most of the finest cave art can still be seen. Although it needs a marked degree of imagination, a stag and bison can be seen, together with a deer, horse and ibis. There are also a number of enigmatic triangles of various sizes ranging up to around 9cm high, along with stylised birds.

There is an excellent state of the art Museum and Education Centre together with a small cafĂŠ

together with car parking close by the caves, but to protect their rare treasures, none of them are open to the public other than by the guided tours organised throughout the year on advertised days.

Booking is advised, by ‘phoning the Creswell Crags Museum on (01909) 720378. Email: info@ creswell-crags.org.uk. Web site: www.creswellcrags.org.uk.

Similar limestone gorges to Creswell Crags are dotted about the area, roughly between Pleasley Vale in the south and near Roche Abbey in the north. While many are accessible by public footpaths and have also been shown to have housed early inhabitants, the Creswell Crags site is by far the best investigated.

guided tours

Bridge House, Ambleside.

Images of Four Lakes

Not having visited the Lakes recently, Brian Spencer readily accepted the offer of a few days in Central Lake District.

Using Ambleside as a base couldn’t have been better. With the excellent public transport service, it was easy to get to all the places we decided to explore. Buses running at least hourly seem to find their way into the most remote valleys these days and even the ubiquitous Mountain Goat, despite financial cutbacks, still climbs its way over the high passes and into otherwise inaccessible corners of the Lakes. Ferries run up and down three of the main lakes, offering a service that began in Victorian times.

With only a few days at our disposal we decided to explore the four lakes most easily accessible from Ambleside; Windermere, Rydal, Grasmere and Derwent Water. The first three we could explore direct from base so to speak and the latter by a pleasant bus ride over Dunmail Raise to Keswick; travelling by doubledecker offers a completely different aspect for car drivers. We planned to use ferries as well, using them to get to places far from accessible roads.

Windermere, being on Ambleside’s doorstep was an easy decision to make, especially when we discovered there is a walkers’ ferry! This runs round the upper part of the lake and with it walkers can hop on and off at will.

We decided to take this ferry from Ambleside over to Wray Castle on the west side of Windermere. Now owned by the National Trust, the mock medieval castle was built in the mid-1800s for a Liverpool doctor, James Dawson and until quite recently it was used a training college for marine radio officers. Then it was known as RMS Wray Castle due to the navy’s insistence of calling all their establishments ships even though they might be miles from the sea. When the college closed it was handed over to the National Trust as an almost empty shell, devoid of any furniture. Rather than import so-called period furniture and fittings from elsewhere the Trust left it as it was, leaving it to visitors’ imaginations to decide how they would like to furnish the building. This is not an easy task, especially when confronted with a blend of Victorian Gothic and 1970’s bathroom plumbing, but it works – there is even a ship’s steering wheel at the head of the main staircase where children can pretend to steer the good ship Wray Castle. The grounds are a delight, a simple blend of natural woodland and mature shrubs, somewhere for children to

Windermere - England’s largest lake enjoy, to feel free to run round and make as much noise as they want.

An easy shoreline path goes south from the castle through natural woodland with frequent views across the lake towards the dramatic sweep of Fairfield Horseshoe. Despite the glorious sunshine it brought back troubled memories of a winter expedition some years ago when my wife and I literally had to claw our way across its icy upper slopes.

Woods with lovely names run one after the other; Balla Wray, Belle Grange, Heald Wood and Harrow Slack lead the way to the narrowest part of Windermere and the car ferry point where we could again pick up the walkers’ ferry; this one only took us to Bowness, past tiny islands each with its evocative history. Time enough for an ice cream at Bowness before the next stage of our water-borne journey, this time as far as the Lake District National Park Centre at Brockhole. Using a Victorian gentleman’s residence as its nucleus, it offers a whole range of activities, advice and exhibitions set amidst magnificent gardens. The cream teas made a perfect distraction. We did look along the lake shore for the site of the wartime factory where Sunderland flying boats were made, but could only see the remains of an abandoned slipway.

Rydal Water and Grasmere are Wordsworth country, for he lived much of his life in and around the shores of these delightful lakes. There was no need for any form of public transport, simply to walk through Ambleside and into the open country on its doorstep. But not before a quick look at Bridge House. This strange building stands beside the main road and dates from the late 17th century supposedly built as a summer house or folly for

Calm water on Derwent Water.

River Rothay, Ambleside.

Rydal Water the now defunct Ambleside Hall. Local tradition however, says it was built by a man too mean to buy land on which to build his house.

Boat landing at Waterhead, Windermere.

Quiet back lanes and tracks across the River Rothay avoid the sight and sound of traffic on the main road. The start of Wordsworth’s home ground is along the north facing slopes above Rydal where he spent the last 37 years of his life, but we were saving the visit until later. Our aim was to climb up to Loughrigg Terrace, one of the easiest yet inspiring paths in all of Lakeland.

The views are to the north of the glowering bulk of Fairfield with just a tiny glimpse of Helvellyn to its left. Although one of the smallest lakes, Rydal Water has enough going for it to entrance anyone seeking quiet contemplation. Quiet it might be, but at one time miners quarried a massive cave-like hole in the hillside high above the terrace, searching the special slate buried there.

Grasmere the lake is the big brother to Rydal, but although it is easy to find, very few of the thousands of visitors who flock to its namesake village go that little bit further, more’s the pity. There is no doubting the fact that despite the traffic, the woollen shops, cafés and gift emporiums, Grasmere village is a pretty place.

Wordsworth is buried in St Oswald’s churchyard in a simple grave close to the river that fills the lake. He lived from 1799 to 1808 in Dove Cottage at Town End beyond the main part of the village. In between writing poetry he was the Distributor of Postage Stamps for Westmorland, a kind of early postmaster. It couldn’t have taken much of his time because his sister Dorothy still found time to record the traffic passing the cottage on its way north and south.

Grasmere

We took the track which pre-dates the motor road in the valley bottom, an old bridleway climbing behind Dove Cottage. With

Ruray Castle; A National Trust property. In the past a naval radio training establishment. it we crossed the hillside high above the twin lakes, up and down, in and out through ancient woodlands until we came to Rydal village. Here we homed in on the promised tea and scones in the garden of Rydal Mount. Part 1574 farmer’s cottage, the house and carefully tended garden are very much as Wordsworth would have remembered. We were of course far too late for Dora’s Field. The glorious host of golden daffodils bloom each spring in the churchyard, but the summer annuals in the Mount’s garden were a close second.

There was extensive water engineering works going on as we followed the lane away from Rydal Hall; apparently it is part of a scheme designed to channel water into a hydro-electric generator. A little bit of road walking was inevitable, but it soon got us back to Ambleside in time for supper.

Northwards by bus to Keswick on our last day and a short walk through the bewildering inner by-pass – the old town centre road is now pedestrianised and so one must be grateful for small mercies. This was to be our second walk and ride day, this time around much of Derwent Water and back by bus. We could have taken the Borrowdale bus up to the head of the lake, but instead chose to walk into Portinscale village and follow paths going south into the heavily tree-covered west side of the lake. This was the right decision because it gave us ever changing views of Skiddaw and its neighbour Blencathra to the north, leaving the anticipated view south along Borrowdale to the last. With the long ridge of Cat Bells on our right, the minipeak of Castle Crag acted as a taster for two of Lakeland’s giants, Great Gable and the Scafell massif. There was just enough time to grab a cup of tea at Grange before catching the bus back into Keswick, the perfect end to a perfect trip around four of Lakeland’s gems.

Old underground slate quarry.

‘Countryside in Your Hands’ sculpture.

LYME HALL AND ITS PARK It is hard to realise that this magnificent Palladian mansion on the western edge of the Peak District is within a stone’s throw of Greater Manchester.

Brian Spencer enjoyed a day there recently.

A narrow road off the A6 beyond Disley winds its way through Lyme Park for about a mile. Suddenly the hall reveals itself in a sheltered hollow within a backcloth of forest and moorland. For over six centuries this was the home of the Legh family, later ennobled as the Lords Newton, who used it as a sporting estate for stag hunting and country pursuits. Even now descendants of the red deer can be found gently grazing below the surrounding moors.

In 1398 the estate was given to Piers Legh by King Richard II somewhat belatedly in recognition of Legh’s wife Margaret’s grandfather Sir Thomas Danyers’ heroic deeds at the Battle of Crécy. The Leghs seem to have

money making the hall even grander, but many turned their attention to its gardens. However, it was Thomas Legh and his nephew William John Legh, later to become the First Lord Newton in 1892, who created the garden very much as we see it today. spent the next two centuries fighting in various wars and stag hunting in their spare time. It was during this time that Lyme Hall began to develop, each successive generation adding more than a little bit here and there.

Some of the earlier building works were subsequently destroyed in order to make way for yet more grandiose extensions. Of all the long list of Leghs who worked on improving Lyme, it was Sir Piers Legh VIII and his successor, Sir Peter IX who in the early 17th century began to turn the hall from an Elizabethan mansion into the magnificent Palladian mini-palace we see today. In this their work was later extended by Richard Legh and his son Peter XII in the late 1600s. Down the centuries the owners of Lyme not only spent time and

Like many titled estates, Lyme’s wealth was based on landowning, in particular those lands sitting on top of vast reserves of Lancashire coal. Despite a zenith in the estate’s fortunes during the early part of the 20th century, changes brought about by altering social conditions during and after two world wars, made the upkeep of Lyme more and more difficult. As a result the 3rd Lord Newton gave the hall and its surrounding 1400 acres of park and moorland to the National Trust in 1946. Unfortunately such was the parlous state of the family finances that the transfer was made without any form of endowment. To ease this burden Stockport Corporation (later Metropolitan Borough Council), leased the property, and until 1994 became responsible for its maintenance.

Stockport MBC continue to give financial assistance, but the day to day management of the hall and its estate is now directly under the control of the National Trust.

The Hall

If you had come to Lyme in its heyday, the view of the house as you approached would be much the same as today, a balanced spread of three-storied linked extensions on either side of the Elizabethan entrance arch. No doubt the gates would be closed, but sentries standing in the cramped pill-boxes on either side of the gate would announce your arrival with blasts on their hunting horns. Once admitted your carriage would make its way through the narrow entrance arch and into the courtyard with its Italian Renaissance marble well head. If the date was after 1738 you would descend on to the pink and white chequered paving and then be led up the formal steps and into the comfortable formality of the Entrance Hall. Today the entrance is very much as it was planned by the architect Leoni who managed to fit it into the confines of the then Elizabethan Great Hall, the main living space as it then was. This was the sort of place designed to both impress and also make the visitor welcome. Opulent settees and easy chairs are set about on a lush scarlet carpet beneath a ceiling supported by stately Corinthian columns; in cold weather there would no doubt, be a cheerful fire blazing in the marble, underneath the portraits of ancestors gazing approvingly from the walls.

The sunken garden

The Italian Renaissance marble well head For some unknown reason, Lyme’s floor plan is slightly irregular, being wider on the east side than the west, with the south front angling away to the south-eastern corner. Here the extra space has been used to create a series of attractive bays, one on top of the other. With the exception of the Entrance Hall and Long Gallery, none of the rooms are particularly large and as a result can be quite cosy. Both the Drawing Room and Library are rooms made for comfort and relaxation. Although it was somewhat over romanticised, a nineteenth century coloured lithograph by Joseph Nash shows the Drawing Room as it might have been in Elizabethan times. The Library’s bay is just perfect for bookworms to while away the odd hour or so.

Favoured guests would be received in the chandelier-lit Saloon where they were entertained by one of the Legh family playing on the walnut harpsichord. Dating from the mid-1700s, it is one of the earliest made by the master craftsman John Hitchcock. Grinling Gibbons was also commissioned to help decorate the room and several of his exquisite limewood carvings adorn the Saloon walls.

Long delicate, intricate pieces represent the Seasons, Music and the Arts and Science – all carved by hands so skilled that it is hard to believe the pieces are carved from wood.

The fire place given to the butler as a wedding present.

The Orangery

All gracious mansions have their Grand Staircases, but whilst that at Lyme is made to impress, it does seem to have been tucked away almost as an afterthought in a corner beyond the Entrance Hall. It fills the space once occupied by its 17th-century

The butler’s pantry predecessor, up which fourteen Dutch troopers rushed in July 1694 in order to arrest Peter Legh XII on the charge of being involved in the Jacobite ‘Lancashire Plot’. The stairs lead to a series of small bedrooms and also the Long Gallery. Designed for gentle exercise in bad weather, this is where the family tradition of Christmas plays took place.

Running a house on the scale of Lyme would require a staff almost the size of a small army. Overseeing it would be the butler who had the closest contact with the family and a housekeeper responsible for the day to day running of the hall and working closely with the head chef. Pantries still with silver dishes waiting to be polished fit nicely alongside the butler’s office. Close by the south entrance it is where he would keep meticulous records of all the finances while keeping a careful eye on the stocks of fine wines – and no doubt as tradition seems to have dictated, helping himself to the odd glass or two of his lordship’s finest port.

The Garden

Not on the scale of say Chatsworth, nevertheless you will have to go a long way to find anything more attractive than the garden at Lyme. From records of payment for things like ‘arbours’ where couples could bill and coo away from prying eyes, or the first detail of work on what became the Reflecting Lake, work on the garden dates back as at least 1609. Various

Leghs put their stamp on the layout, but like many such places, it suffered badly from neglect during the Second World War. Fortunately all the glory has been restored, mostly through the tireless work of a devoted team of gardeners, helped by donations from the National Gardens Scheme.

Leaving the South Entrance, a wide gravel path leads to the west terrace created to buttress the south-west corner of the house. Below it is one of Lyme’s everlasting attractions, the Dutch Garden where dwarf clipped hedges scroll around massed beds of tulips every spring. Continuing, the path follows the shape of the lake and its famous mirrored reflection of the house. At its head are massed rhododendrons leading to the formal beds set amongst the Orangery Terrace.

The Park

Practically all the 1400 acres of park and moorland are free to wander at will. To the east of the hall Lantern Wood hides the tower of that name and wild deer roam the rest of the park.

Paths radiate from the car park, one goes past the pond where the dashing Mister Darcy aka Colin Firth emerged in sexily clinging shirt. This path leads up on to the open moor, past the enigmatic Bowstones. In the other direction, Lyme Cage, a one-time hunting tower stands high above the Cheshire Plain.

A gift shop and café cleverly make use of the estate’s saw mill and timber yard.

Meynell Langley Trials Garden Summer might be over and done with, but autumn and winter should be the time when plans are made for next year’s flower beds and fruit trees.

With this in mind Brian Spencer went along to Meynell Langley Trials Garden in order to get some ideas for next year.

Meynell Langley Garden takes a bit of finding, but once there visitors enter a completely different world to the usual highly commercialised garden centre. While there will be plenty of plants on sale, the one thing you can be certain of is that they will have been thoroughly tried and tested in the trials garden opposite the main entrance. Here, in conditions matching a well laid out everyday garden, individual plants and vegetables grow either singly, or clumped with compatible neighbours, which alone can create ideas of how best to lay out one’s own garden. This to repeat, is not your everyday garden centre, but somewhere to go and learn how best to make your own little Garden of Eden.

In 1941 Samuel Walker, grandfather of the present driving force Robert Walker, moved from Tissington Hall to become

head gardener on the Meynell Langley Estate. Deciding to specialise in getting the best plants to thrive in our decidedly mixed climate, he rented the estate’s old walled garden.

It still hosts a mix of tender fruits such as cherries, plums, peaches, nectarines and apricots, all within sight of the back windows of the original gardener’s cottage. This is where the greenhouses still stand, now fitted with modern glass. Many of the crumbling Victorian wooden frames have been replaced by aluminium, nurturing all the home grown stock and the complex range of flowering plants for sale – many hybrid plants being covered by copyright, have to be bought-in wholesale. When we were last there, Debbie Cooper was busily pricking out winter pansies – hundreds of them which I am sure would be a riot of colour a month or so after we visited the garden.

Pictures this page, top to bottom: The original gardener’s cottage - part of the old Meynell Langley Estate Debbie Cooper potting on winter pansies Owner, Robert Walker It is the area across the car park opposite the main entrance that will be the main attraction for anyone coming to Meynell Langley looking for ideas. What was once an open field, roughly triangular in shape, at first glance looks like a well tended, well stocked flower garden. That it is, but everything growing there is part of a well thought-out plan, for this is the trials garden and certainly the place to go to decide which plants might thrive in your own garden. It also offers ideas about mixing completely different plants; who would think, certainly not me, of growing sweet peas together with runner beans, or lollo rosso lettuces beneath

cabbages? The effect is startling, but it works. One thing I noticed was that they deliberately leave some frost hating plants such as dahlias in the ground over winter. With a bit of shelter and let’s face it, a mild winter like the last one, they had popped up to bloom in their flamboyant glory this summer. All the plants offered for sale will be trialled somewhere in the garden, all highlighted with discrete letter and number identifying plates that can be checked from the handy reference sheets the nursery has produced. Don’t be put out if you come across the occasional dead plant, for this is part of the overall scheme in running a trials garden and the growers want to see how they perform in everyday conditions. No sprays are used on any of the edible crops, much to the delight of the local caterpillar population, but the cabbages and kale seemed to be coping, albeit looking a bit moth eaten in places.

Vegetables, fruit bushes and fruit trees, especially apples, upright or cordoned, mingle with annual and perennial flowers. They even make their own cider at Meynell Langley and are not afraid to experiment with mixed fruits such as a blend of cookers, eating and crab apples, with a few quince fruits thrown in for good measure!

One of the many things Meynell Garden specialises in is hanging baskets. Lining the grassed entrance walk into the trials garden and along many of the side paths, are baskets overflowing with masses of colourful trailing species of what seemed to be everything from petunias to miniature daisies. Rather than hang down from some possibly dominant frame work, the baskets on display sit on top of individual poles; watering is through an unobtrusive connecting pipe that looks as though it is controlled by a solar-powered system that can detect when things are beginning to dry out a little.

Meynell Langley Trials Garden is a member of the National Gardens Scheme and throughout the summer special weekends are organised with demonstrations and advice on a number of differing gardening topics ranging from summer pruning of fruit trees to how to get the best out of flower bedding or hanging baskets. The gardens are open daily from late May to mid October from 10am to 5pm on Saturdays and weekdays, 11am – 4pm on Sundays.

The best way to approach the garden is along Flagshaw Lane from Kirk Langley and the A52. Signposts at strategic intervals direct the way.

Telephone (01332) 824358 www.meynell-langley-gardens.co.uk

The Café

The Victorian Greenhouse

ROUGHNECKS & NODDING DONKEYS

Wandering round the tranquil glades of Duke’s Wood Nature Reserve near Eakring, Brian Spencer came across what at first glance seemed machines designed by the eccentric artist, Heath Robinson.

Known as ‘Nodding Donkeys’, they turned out to be the relics of Britain’s first on-shore oil field...

At the start of World War 2, Britain’s only sources of oil to fuel its war machine came from Iran and the United States of America; over 80% of the country’s needs were imported from these two countries. Everything had to come by lumbering tankers vulnerable to the attacks of marauding U-Boats. Within 7 months during 1941 the enemy had sunk 681 vessels laden with essential fuel and by the autumn of 1942 an average of 700,000 tons of shipping went to the bottom of the sea each month: Britain’s arteries were haemorrhaging.

During an immediately pre-war geological survey of Britain, D’Arcy Exploration which became British Petroleum Exploration, discovered a small, but significantly potential oil field. It lay deep beneath the Nottingham countryside near the pretty village of Eakring to the east of Mansfield. With all its drilling equipment tied up in the Middle East, BP turned to the USA for help in drilling the wells that would tap the precious liquid far below ground. At this time, 1941, the USA was a neutral country and so anyone coming into the UK would effectively be entering a war zone. Such was the comradely feeling in America towards Britain at the time, that BP had little or no trouble finding a drilling company willing to cross the hazardous waters of

the Atlantic, furthermore its employees, Oklahoma ‘roughnecks’ in the trade, all came as volunteers and their employers waived the right of profit rights from whatever came out of the ground. Also because it was wartime everything had to be carried out under the cloak of secrecy.

What these oil-men thought when they arrived in a rural part of Nottinghamshire is unknown, maybe when they heard they were near Sherwood Forest they half expected to see Errol Flynn in flamboyant green tights fighting it out with the Sheriff of Nottingham. What they did do however, was to set to work as soon as their equipment arrived. Within a week or so, the first derrick was drilling its way down through the coal measures and shales to reach the precious liquid trapped beneath an underground fold in the rocks laid down millions of years ago.

Eakring Oil Field covered a surprisingly small area, more or less the area now filled by Duke’s Wood Nature Reserve. When a drill struck oil there was none of the excitement and danger of a gusher and the only way to prove the drillers had struck black gold was by regularly sampling cores brought up from below. Drilling technique meant that

Eakring Oil Field covered a surprisingly small area Main picture: Nodding Donkeys - no longer slurping up oil Above: Pictures from the Visitor Centre

From nodding donkeys to wind turbines a twin-headed drill would bore its way steadily underground at the tip of a long tube; lubrication was by a special type of mud in order to keep the drill head cool. With a number of wells successfully drilled, the next stage was to bring the oil to the surface and pipe it away to Britain’s refineries.

Bringing the oil to the surface meant literally sucking it out of the ground through a slightly narrower pipe let down through the hole made by the rotating drill. This was done by what became known as ‘nodding donkeys’, aptly named from their shape and action. Powered by an electric motor, a beam rocking up and down transferred the motion to a rod travelling down a pipe filling the hole drilled previously, which in turn brought the oil to the surface. Once at the surface it was controlled by a complex system of valves and then piped away.

Between 1943 and 1965 when the wells were deemed to have run dry, a total of 2,289,207 barrels of crude oil had been extracted from far beneath the Nottinghamshire countryside.

The term barrel incidentally, is purely technical, as each ‘barrel’

equates to 42 gallons, therefore Eakring’s contribution to the war effort and beyond was in excess of 96,146,694 gallons!

In thanks for the sterling efforts of the roughnecks, a statue called ‘The Oil Patch Warrior’ was originally erected on the site, but has since been moved to the sculpture park at Rufford Abbey. Dramatically depicting one of the men who made their temporary home in a corner of Sherwood Forest, a similar statue was presented to their home town of Ardmore in Oklahoma. By their friendship and willingness to share the privations of wartime Britain, these roughnecks from over the water made a significant help towards their allies’ wartime struggle for survival.

Duke’s Wood Nature Reserve Where there was once intense activity and the over powering smell of crude oil, nature has reclaimed what was once its own. Native trees including oaks that will one day compete with those in Sherwood Forest have spread around small secret looking ponds, the haunt of newts and toads; woodland

Left: A view of 21st century energy generation.

Above: Eakring Wood Below: Roughneck worker; Shane. Now at Rufford Abbey Sculpture Park

birds are sensed rather than seen, apart from the unmelodious ‘skaaak’ of jays, or the rattle of woodpeckers winkling grubs out of their sheltering bark.

Small woodland clearings still have their now redundant nodding donkeys, no longer pumping oil, but cared for with a lick of paint now and then.

Plaques dotted about the woods tell the story of this historic event and there is also a small, but interesting museum to five decades of Eakring Oil Field’s life. Faced by ash planks, the museum is housed in what was once a travelling geological laboratory and is run by two ex-oilmen, volunteers, who are available most Sunday afternoons throughout the summer.

For further information check Eakring Oil Field’s web site, or to make an appointment for special visits, say with a school, telephone (01623) 882446.

Peveril Castle

View of Castleton Village from the keep.

Small but dramatic, Peveril Castle has dominated the popular village of Castleton for over 900 years and still makes a focal point for visitors using the village as a base whilst exploring the local area.

Brian Spencer recently browsed amongst its ancient stones.

The Hope Valley has attracted settlers since Bronze Age tribesmen built a fort on top of Mam Tor. Later on Roman legionaries were based at a small fort at Navio beyond Hope with the dual purpose of controlling traffic northwards across the wild inhospitable moors, but more important was their duty of guarding the slaves forced to mine lead from deep below the surrounding hills.

This lead was an important product exploited later by Saxons then Normans and beyond right up to fairly recent times.

Soon after the Battle of Hastings in 1066, William Peveril, one of the Conqueror’s knights was given lands in the north Midlands in recompense for his support on the battlefield.

Looking for somewhere to use as a secure base, he found the ideal site for his castle in the centre of the Peak District. A steep limestone ridge, sheer sided on two sides and with an easily defended slope to its north, it could not have been better; attackers coming from Cave Dale would be easily spotted as they laboured up the steep limestone crags and Peak Cavern Gorge was totally impassable. Furthermore it also commanded the only two ways in and out of the Hope Valley; west by way of Winnats Pass and south west along Cave Dale, both steep and difficult routes.

Neither road was easy, so any traffic was forced to pass close to the castle and its ever present toll barriers. It also became a base for controlling lead sales, but later on in more settled times, it was somewhere for the king to stay when hunting in the Royal Forest of the Peak. Such was the impregnability of Peveril Castle that it never featured in any of the civil wars that ravaged the country from medieval to Royalist versus Parliamentary times: the apparent damage to the north and east faces of the keep was caused by later builders using the dressed stone that faces it as a handy building material.

The first castle was probably a simple wooden palisade guarding a tented encampment, but gradually it began to take the triangular shape we can recognise today. This was mainly due to the efforts of King Henry II who around 1153 became owner of Peveril lands after William Peveril II backed the wrong side in a civil war, a war that led to the rise of the Plantagenet dynasty. He built the keep and most of the buildings inside the bailey, all within the safety of the existing curtain wall to its north. Clad with dressed limestone blocks over random rubble walls, the keep was built on two stories with a battlemented walk-way and a look-out tower on its southern corner. For its time the secure base was the last word in comfort and safety with a garderobe; an open toilet tucked away coyly at the end of a right angled passage. Flushing toilets were far into the future and waste products simply fell down the cliff into Peak Cavern Gorge. The keep would only have been used as a secure place if the castle came under attack, but mostly it was where administrative matters were dealt with and in later times, it was used as a prison. Wining and dining took place in the

comfort of a purpose built grand hall at the bottom of the bailey, more or less in the north west corner of the curtain wall. It must have seen many a sumptuous banquet with food cooked in the adjoining kitchen which occupies about a third of the hall’s area. Along with things like stables and a small barracks, the castle had its own chapel built above the uppermost crags of Cave Dale. Although it has never been fully excavated, there was also an outer bailey connected to the castle by a bridge over the top of Peak Cavern Gorge and would have housed support workers and animals. Access to the castle was and still is by way of a steep zig-zagging path rising from the old market square in Castleton village which leads to the now ruined east gate, but in its day it was a well guarded entrance. Where there is now a grassy slope, terraces hint of somewhere to grow crops such as vegetables in order to augment supplies for the kitchen. At the top of the slope a flight of wooden steps where the modern metal staircase is now sited, led up to an entrance directly into the main chamber; spiral stone steps led down to the basement, making it easy to isolate anyone sheltering in the keep, something that never actually happened due to the castle’s militarily perfect site.

Peveril Castle became a royal stronghold after 1155 and with it came lands eventually named the Forest of the Peak, a royal hunting forest and as such protected by strict laws. By these laws only the king or his chosen friends and supporters could hunt game. Anyone disobeying this edict would be severely punished no matter if it was a poor miner or cottager attempting to feed his starving family: it is likely that any miscreants would be taken to Peveril Castle where summary justice would be

Above: Man Tor from Pevril Castle.

Far left: Long drop.

Left: A model of the castle in medieval times.

Right: Peveril Castle from Cave Dale.

carried out. Such was the size of herds of deer wandering over the then wooded limestone moors that it is recorded that in August 1250 over 100 stags were killed, salted and sent to a massive feast at Westminster. In 1495 hunting was temporarily banned so that there would be enough game left for Henry VII to hunt.

Despite the carefully controlled hunting in the royal forest, the numbers of deer had reduced drastically by 1564 and with the removal of the last few trees covering the moors for lead smelting, sheep farming gradually took over, setting the format of today’s landscape.

The main responsibility of the holder of Peveril Castle was to control lead mining activity in the region and it is likely that the local barmote court frequently sat there to adjudicate on mining matters such as the transfer of mining rights, or theft of lead when the court had the right to condemn anyone who stole lead more than once. The criminal suffered a long and painful death as he would be hung in a mine shaft from a dagger thrust through his hand. According to the Domesday Book, the lead miners working in the area covered by Castleton, Hope, Bakewell and Ashford had to supply the king with five wagon loads of lead each year. Used extensively to cover roofs, or as flashing, lead was an important building material that strove to keep up with the expansion of building in the 12th and 13th centuries. In 1250 50 ‘fothers’ (a fother was just under a ton), of Peakland lead were sent to Winchester to help roof the king’s new palace.

The ever popular village at the castle’s foot developed within the confines of a surrounding ditch – the best remains of it can be clearly seen to the side of Castleton’s main car park above the side channel of Peakshole Water draining as the name suggests, from Peak Cavern, but although the ditch suggests an outer defensive ring, it was probably designed to force travellers into the village in order to pay tolls to the lord of the manor. Castleton came into existence as a Norman borough where tradesmen whose work was in maintaining the castle lived. Even with today’s activity as a tourist attraction, it is easy to imagine the village as it was in the late Middle Ages. With St Edmund’s Church at its centre and the one time market square behind, it still has a large number of venerable buildings, some at least three hundred years old. With the traffic generated by the castle by the year 1215 Castleton had an annual trade fair and from 1223 there was a weekly market which by 1255 could boast 71 stalls. Like many Peakland villages, Castleton was ravaged by the series of plagues that raged throughout the Middle Ages and beyond, but it managed to survive and even though its castle fell into decline, by retaining such customs as the annual Garland Procession, a custom that is perhaps linked to more ancient times, the village has become the attractive place of today.

Peveril Castle is maintained by English Heritage and is open daily throughout most of the year. There is a small but comprehensive visitor centre where much of the castle’s history is explained. Public transport by way of Hathersage or Hope station is frequent.

A ride along the

Midland Railway from Butterley

At one time it was possible for trains to travel directly from Nottingham to Manchester without going through Sheffield. Trains laden with Nottinghamshire coal would leave the Sheffield line above between Codnor Park Station and Pye Bridge Ironville and travel through Golden Valley to Ambergate where they would join the London via Derby line to Manchester. Brian Spencer recently took a ride along the remains of this line on a steam train run by the Midland Railway – Butterley Trust.

Nowadays the A38 prevents trains from running all the way to Ambergate, but when the line was open, Ambergate Station was unique, with three-platforms in the shape of a triangle. It was also the junction of three lines, Sheffield to London via Derby, London to Manchester again via Derby and the line from the junction with the Nottingham to Sheffield service. Incidentally this last named junction is still in operation, unlike the now truncated Ecclesbourne Valley Line at Duffield. By using the route through Butterley, trains could go directly towards Manchester without travelling by way of Sheffield. As well as hauling coal, it gave Nottingham people a direct way into the Peak District, especially to their inland favourite, Matlock Bath.

Now that the line has been taken over by the Midland Railway Trust, it allows railway buffs of all shades to enjoy a day of nostalgia, riding in circa 1950 carriages behind a powerful exMidland/British Rail Stanier locomotive. Run by volunteers using authentic rolling stock, it allows us mere mortals to appreciate the joys of steam travel – even down to getting a spot of coal grit in our eyes!

We reached Butterley with just enough time to enjoy a cup of tea before joining the 11:00a.m service. The round trip is quite leisurely, taking just over an hour to complete the up and down journey; but as most visitors do, we chose to break the trip half way at Swanwick Junction, joining a later train to complete the ride.

There is something about steam that appeals to everyone young or old. There was even the re-enactment of that famous Southern Region poster of a little boy asking the driver if he was also going on holiday. Few passengers were on board when the locomotive arrived all of a flurry with a good head of steam. Everyone crowded at the end of the platform to watch it roll up and be coupled, before they would drag themselves away to find one of the comfortable seats; just to show how things have changed, there are seats for four on one side of the gangway, sitting round a table and two on the opposite side, still with their table.

All aboard the

Seaside Special

Above: The former British Railway Standard Class 5MT 4-6-0 locomotive no. 73129 restored and hauling the Seaside Special at the Midland Railway - Butterley Trust.

Far left: The crest of the former Midland Railway.

Left: The fully operational signal box

Main picture: Swanwick Junction and from left to right: Butterley Station platform sign.

All aboard!

Vintage luggage.

The outward journey is up a surprisingly steep incline, through a wooded cutting below what remains of the historic Butterley Ironworks. Pausing briefly at the open space filled by Swanwick Junction and its marshalling yard, the train travels leisurely through attractive open countryside and on by way of Ironville, the village built to house miners and workers in the now long gone local iron foundries. Along the way and on a nearby hilltop a tall stone tower commemorates William Jessop (1745-1814) canal builder and founder of the local coal and iron making industry.

Above Ironville the line is linked to Network Rail’s main line, but trains do not go that far. Here the engine moved from front to back so to speak in order to haul the train on its homeward leg. Even though this is a heritage railway, with only one train at a time on the track, correct procedures must be applied at all times, be it signalling or driving.

We left the train at Swanwick Junction where the vast open space has been used to full advantage in a full-sized train layout. From the platform of a station moved lock stock and barrel from the Midland Mainline at Syston in Leicestershire and then rebuilt at Swanwick, the choice of where to go was bewildering. We chose to go to the right, heading for the main loco sheds in the Matthew Kirtley Building. We went by way of the fully operational signal box just like the one at Matlock Bath where I used to watch my Uncle Charlie work the complex system of levers and inter-station regulating bells.

This one was moved into its present location from Kettering.

The Matthew Kirtley Building is named after Midland Railway’s first Mechanical Engineer and houses an exhibition hall featuring the Trust’s

main collection of lovingly maintained rolling stock. While it is off limits to visitors, work going on in the workshops at the back of the hall can be watched through the large clear glass windows. Nearby are displays of vintage road transport vehicles and fork lift trucks. It is also possible to ride on the narrow gauge man-carriers that would have once taken miners underground to the coal face of some east midlands colliery.

Two short branch lines enter the complex, one ran up to Butterley Ironworks and the other on the opposite side of the permanent way can still be seen winding its way as it once did, to Swanwick Colliery.

Across the old way into the ironworks, a footpath wends its way through naturalising bushes and trees to the West Shed Experience. Here there is a display operated by the Princess Royal Class Locomotive Trust. Housing a display of lovingly tended rolling stock; when we were there it was 46203 Princess Margaret Rose that had pride of place. Originally it worked express passenger services for the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS), before being withdrawn from service in 1962. It then spent a few years in a Butlin’s holiday camp before being restored to full working order in 1990. It last ran in 1996 and is now awaiting another major overhaul, when the cost is likely to be around £750,000!

Butlin’s feature strongly in the side gallery of West Shed when you can step back in time admiring one of the 21inch miniature locomotives that ran round their holiday camps from 1938 until the 1960s. Another gallery is devoted to locomotive designer and Chief Mechanical Engineer to the LMS Sir William Stanier. It was he who designed the locomotives powerful

Below; Apologies to the famous Southern Railways poster.

enough to haul trains up the steep gradients around Monsal Dale and beyond.

Time was passing and we had only visited the main sheds – there was still a model railway layout and the corrugated St Saviour’s Church built in 1898 for the railway village of Westhouses near Alfreton, but with tongues almost on the floor we headed for Johnson’s Buffet and a cuppa plus a bowl of home-made soup.

Bang on the dot of 14:40 the train arrived on its homeward journey. Rather than stop at Butterley it runs as far as the A38 at Hammersmith where the engine in all its glory wheezed its way to the back of the train and, after coupling up once again, took us back to Butterley. Here there was enough time to enjoy playing trains with the huge model railway layout before rejoining the twenty first century traffic.

The Midland Railway – Butterley is a volunteer run trust whose members give up their spare time to relive the way trains ran not all that long ago.

There are special events run throughout the year, such as, Teddy Bears Weekends and when we were there, a Sea Side Special – the sea side turned out to be a sandy ‘beach ’at Swanwick Junction, explaining why there were so many buckets and spades on board our train. Grown up train buffs can enjoy things like the Diesel or Vintage Weekends, or maybe learn to drive one of the steam monsters designed by Sir William Stanier.

For further information phone: 01773 570721 or visit the website: www.midlandrailway-butterley.co.uk

For holidays I always go

Midland Cos it’s the ‘Sunshine Line’

A Stroll Around Kedleston

Gazebo in the pleasure grounds

Derbyshire’s second most important grand house, Kedleston, is a short distance from the centre of Derby. Brian Spencer took a stroll around its park and managed to glean something of the history of this stately home.

Set amidst open parkland, Kedleston Hall sits in splendour at the head of the long sweeping drive. It was designed by the great eighteenth-century architect, Robert Adam for Sir Nathaniel Curzon, the 5th Baronet who had inherited the estate in 1758.

Like all stately houses, Kedleston was not meant as a home, but as a statement, somewhere the owner could impress visiting royalty. The family, as they still do today, lived their day to day lives in the east wing and only used the main building on special occasions.

The first Curzon came to England with William the Conqueror and for his help was given lands around ‘Ketelestune’. Whilst the Cavendish dynasty was the leading light of the Whig party, the Curzons were head of the Derbyshire Tories. The Lord Curzon most associated with Kedleston is George Nathaniel Curzon, Viceroy of India, but although he managed to fill rooms with the treasures he brought back from India, he only inherited the estate nine years before his death.

Looking at All Saints’ Church, adjacent to the hall and realising that its origins are older than the house, it becomes apparent that it was originally the parish church of a village. This was the

Fishing Temple of the lower lake. Here bathers would convince themselves that bathing in what we would now call polluted water, was doing them a power of good. There is another well this time on the opposite side of the lake. Known as the Lion’s Mouth or Bentley’s Well, even now it has much cleaner water and stands a few yards to the left of the drive, halfway between the bridge and house.

As befits what have been designated as the Pleasure Grounds, a path known as the Long Walk winds its way beside the lower lake before reaching the manicured lawns to the south of the hall. Passing through the surrounding woods, it is still meant to be enjoyed by all who stroll along its shaded glades, making it an ideal place for children to explore. There are badger setts galore and a special place where fallen branches small enough for tiny arms to hold, can be used to make dens.

Lion’s Mouth Well

A pair of stone gate posts that once adorned the House of Lords marks the entrance to the Pleasure Grounds proper. Here the gentry would take their ease in times gone by, murmuring scandalous nothings, or discussing the politics of the day. The copy of a Medicean lion stands on its plinth, another of Robert Adam’s designs; various urns and a pretty gazebo complete the ornamentation of this pleasant frontage to the hall’s south front. There cannot be a more posher back door than that at Kedleston; two elegantly curved stone staircases sweep up to a terrace backed by the windows of the Marble Hall and was once trod by the nobility. This front is in complete contrast to the main entrance, the north front where six pillars separate allegorical figures, laying to the claim that it is the ‘grandest Palladian façade in Britain’.

To reach that façade it is necessary to walk round the outside of

old Kedleston village which was obliterated to make room for the hall. Fields tended by generations of Saxon yeomen were landscaped to make the rolling acres of parkland where the hall now sits proudly at its highest point, backed by masses of mature woodlands.

Almost from the beginning, visitors have enjoyed visiting Kedleston, both the park as well as the house. The house divides the park into two distinct sections, the park proper (known as the Old Park) and the Pleasure Grounds at the rear beyond the south front. A series of interconnected lakes created by rocky cascades are crossed in their middle by a triple arched bridge designed by the architect Robert Adam who landscaped the park. He also built the elaborate boat house that stands upstream of the bridge. Known correctly as a Fishing Pavilion, it was decorated by still-life paintings by artists such as Zuccharelli and carvings of sea monsters by George Moneypenny. Large in proportion to the lake on which it stands, the pavilion was meant as a kind of changing room for visitors who came to enjoy the dubious delights of cold water bathing. It was during this time that Kedleston became something of a spa; there is even a Sulphur Bath House on the golf course above the northern bank

Fountain in the pleasure grounds

Bridge on the approach the hall, passing on the way the Norman doorway to the hall’s family chapel. Weathered fish heads carved into the stone surround proclaim the Christian beliefs of its medieval builders.

Inside are the tombs of long gone Curzons, but the oddest is that of Lady Mary Victoria, Viceroy Lord Curzon’s American first wife who died quite young. The tragedy of her passing is made all the more poignant by the fact that Lord Curzon is shown in effigy alongside her. He was still very much alive and in fact remarried eleven years later to another American lady. You can tell that he is alive even though his eyes are closed because he has kicked the coverlet away from his right foot.

There is another strange effigy, this time not in the church, but seen briefly from the churchyard bridge on the way towards the front of the house. This is the statue is of a young man dressed in tight fitting silk breeches and open necked shirt who is shown lying on his back with his right arm across his chest. It represents the young poet Thomas Chatterton, who committed suicide in 1770 when he was accused of attempting to pass off his own work as that by an imaginary 15th-century monk, Thomas Rowley. The tragic tale inspired Wordsworth to pen one of his more turgid poems.

Moving round past the modern restaurant based on the original kitchens (incidentally a long way from the dining room in order to minimise cooking smells), today’s entrance is by way of what was the garden room. It leads, not only to the formal part of the hall, but to Lord Curzon’s collection of memorabilia amassed during his tenure as Viceroy of India. This is a vast collection of gifts ranging from the mundane to the fabulous together with a huge tiger skin glaring with malevolent eyes at anyone daring to get too close. Of all the treasures in the Eastern Museum, two

Effigy of Thomas Chatterton stand out beyond all others; first is the silver howdah in which dignitaries rode on the back of an elephant during the Delhi Durbar, held to commemorating the coronation of King Edward VII in 1903. Amazing though it may be, it is surpassed by the dress made for Lady Curzon and is the first thing to greet visitors as they enter the room. Known as the Peacock Dress, it was embroidered by a team of Indian craftsmen with metal thread and jewels on cloth of gold in a pattern of peacock feathers incorporating tiny beetle wings that would scintillate as Lady Curzon moved in a room lit by electricity.

Visitors in the eighteenth-century would be taken round the hall

by Mrs Garnett, who was the housekeeper at the time. Today a National Trust volunteer dressed exactly like that formidable lady is only too happy to carry out the same duties as Mrs Garnett and regale visitors with interesting anecdotes of life in and around the state rooms of Kedleston Hall.

The hall and estate is a National Trust property that is open on advertised days. Since acquiring the house and estate, the Trust has recently carried out a programme of necessary redecoration which tried as far as possible using modern materials, to replicate the original. Fabrics such as the faded damask hangings in the State Apartments have been replaced with silk materials, covering 1,470 metres in total!

Four walks around the park have been laid out by the Trust, the ‘Long Walk’ mentioned above which is 3.2 miles in length and also a short walk of 2 miles covering the middle section. There is also a ‘Wilderness Walk’ of 2.5 miles from the bridge and through woodland bordering the drive that runs from Kedleston Road; the fourth is also 2.5 miles and is round both sides of the upper lake.

The Danes have a word for it

By Brian Spencer

Many languages have a word fitting the country’s national character that is almost impossible to translate into English; the Welsh have their hwyl and the Danes have hygge. The word is hard to explain and even harder to pronounce, hygge sounds a bit like ‘hooga’ and officially translates as cosiness. However, that definition doesn’t quite cover everything and should be linked to hospitality, friendship, well-being and other things related to happiness. In fact the Danes are considered the happiest people in the world. At the invitation of my long standing Danish friends, I recently went there to enjoy some hygge.

For a nation where happiness is an important part of every day life, it is hardly surprising that bang in the middle of Copenhagen the capital city, Tivoli Gardens has offered a combination of fairground rides, theatrical performances, concerts and cafés since 1843. Completely up to date, nevertheless it still manages to convey a by-gone atmosphere. Attendants are dressed in old-fashioned outfits and the Tivoli Boys’ Guard frequently parades through the park, dressed in red-and-white uniforms and bearskin hats.

It would be hard not to know that Copenhagen was the home of Hans Andersen whose children’s tales still manage to enthral both old and young. There is a statue to him close by Tivoli Gardens and a small but effective museum to the great writer. His greatest memorial, Den Lille Havfrue or ‘The Little Mermaid’, sits on a rock just above the tide-line a short boat ride to the north of the city centre. The sculptor Edvard Eriksen fortunately saved the original moulds when he based his design on his young wife in 1913. For some unfathomable reason, the statue attracts vandals and the poor mermaid has lost her head on several occasions, and so spares are kept handy.

Statues and fountains are featured almost everywhere

throughout the city. Opposite the entrance to Hans Christian Andersen’s Wonderful World, two lur players stand surrounded by their gracefully curved trumpets on top of a high column. They are not intended as an advert for Danish butter, but date from Viking times.

Graceful the lurs may be but the sound they make is apparently harsh and unattractive. A short step away is the magnificent Bull and Dragon fountain. Like many similar features it depicts a fierce watery battle

Top: The Little Mermaid and above Tivoli Boys’ Guard

Clockwise from top left: Elsinore, Hamlet’s Castle.

Statue of Hans Andersen.

Nyhaven.

Holgar, Denmark’s King Arthur.

between the two creatures linked to Viking mythology.

There is another fountain in a square beyond Strøget, a pedestrianised shopping street. This is the Gefion fountain, probably the most impressive in the city and depicts the legend of the goddess Gefion who turned her four sons into oxen, using them to pull the island of Zealand on which Copenhagen stands, away from Sweden.

Another feature that impresses visitors is the number of spires and steeples dotting the skyline. No two are alike and here are just two that caught my attention.

The one marking Vor Frelsers Kirke (Church of Our Saviour), has a spiral staircase winding from the outside of its copper clad base almost to the statue of Christ on its summit; the staircase is open to the public and gives what must be the best view of the city. The other notable tower rises up from the canal area and fittingly marks the Børsen (stock exchange).

Dating from the reign of King Christian IV, it is made from the intertwined tails of four dragons. The focal point of Copenhagen’s canal network is Nyhaven with its Amsterdam-like water front of restaurants facing moored boats and the busy starting point for canal trips.

A little further on is the Amalienborg Slot – the royal palace. Impressively backed by the Marble Church, a scaled down version of St Peter’s Rome, the palace comprises four equal sized buildings surrounding a cobbled square. Like our royal palaces the Royal Guard stand on duty around the square; dressed in blue with white cross-over straps and like our royal guards they wear black bearskins on their heads.

Somehow as befits Hans Andersen’s city they look not unlike toy soldiers and rather than march up and down from their red sentry boxes, they seem to stroll in a manner that would drive a British Guards RSM to apoplexy. Toy soldiers they might seem to be, there is no doubting their bravery, especially those on duty when the Nazis invaded neutral Denmark in 1940. Preparing to die to the last man, they were only stopped when the King came out of his palace and ordered them to surrender.

Every Dane seems to own a bicycle and the Copenhagen equivalent of ‘Boris Bikes’ can be hired outside the Central Station. Beyond the city centre, the street layout has miles of wide cycle lanes. Unlike our often token strips, these are wide enough for two bikes to pass with ease and follow main roads as well as side, for miles between towns and villages.

Copenhagen’s answer to Boris Bikes.

The goddess Gefion who turned her sons into oxen.

My friends live in a pleasant suburb a short train ride from Copenhagen and where the road layout easily caters for cyclists alongside cars and commercial vehicles. The town, Kongens Lyngby is home to the Danish Technical University (DTU) which is built in the American campus pattern amidst rolling lawns and shady trees on the site of an abandoned airfield.

We had a look inside and what impressed me was the library without a single printed book in sight, everything being electronic. What did cause the wry smile was the place where students can relax. Four or five of them were lying on huge bean bags at the foot of the open plan staircase – I couldn’t decide who was actually studying and who was simply asleep!

Lyngby is built around a series of lakes where excellent restaurants act as an alternative to the gentle lake cruises, or maybe a visit to the nearby Frilandsmuseet, the Open Air Museum, something which should be high on every visitor’s agenda.

Surprisingly free to enter considering the cost of assembling what is inside, the museum is a collection of over 50 traditional farm houses and old industrial buildings that have been moved brick by brick, tile by tile and timber by timber from their original homes all over Denmark. Set in a 35 hectare (90 acre) site of working farmland, there are buildings from Jutland to the Faroes, all built from any materials that were originally available – there is even a farmstead from Læsø in the Kattegat where the roof is thatched with seaweed.

Tivoli Gardens

The background to Shakespeare’s Hamlet has always fascinated me; mainly because it puzzles me as to where, at an age when travel could to say the least be hazardous, did Shakespeare get his ideas from?

As Elsinore (Helsingør in Danish), was only a short train ride away, we spent a day visiting this busy harbour town where the Swedes still take the twentyminute ferry crossing in order to buy cheaper booze.

Kronborg Slot, Hamlet’s castle, stands defiantly above a narrow strip of sea, making its fortune from collecting tolls off any vessel passing through the Kattegat.

Despite being over four hundred years old, the castle is in remarkable condition for its age. According to records held in the castle, the Bard’s company of actors definitely went there, but whether Shakespeare was with them is unclear but it is possible. An attendant I spoke to told me that there is a record of a young prince who could have been used for Hamlet and there was also a princess called Ophelia who spent several years at a nearby Carmelite Convent where she was finally buried: in the play she is told ‘Get thee to a nunnery’. There is also a latter day statue of someone who could easily masquerade as the ghost of Hamlet’s father. However, this is not quite correct as the statue is of someone much older; Holger the Dane, a 9th-century Viking warrior whose legend has parallels to our story of King Arthur. Apparently, like King Arthur, he never actually died, but just went to sleep, and will wake to defend Denmark whenever the country is threatened. During World War II, a section of the Danish Resistance adopted the name of Holger Danske.

Like all good things my trip came to an end all too soon, but I did enjoy the hygge.

Twisted spire of the old stock exchange

Statue of 2 lur players

Open Air Museum; farm house from the Faroes.

Open Air Museum; typical Danish farmstead.

For at least two centuries, the Ram has been the symbol of not only the City of Derby, but also its football team and local regiment.

Brian Spencer attempts to discover the story behind this magnificent beast.

The

Derby Ram

If you walk from Derby’s Westfield Centre towards the Assembly Rooms at the junction of East Street and Albion Street, you will come to the statue of a huge ram, a street sculpture by Michael Pegler and ever popular with the children who like to scramble up on to its back. This is the Derby Ram, symbol of not only the city, but also Derby County Football Team, and still hanging on despite numerous mergers, the Derbyshire portion of the Mercian Regiment.

Where the story of the Ram came from seems vague, but folk memory in the nineteenth century mentions a ram of such colossal proportions that it was almost impossible to shear its wool, or when the time came, to butcher its carcass. The story was put to music and the song, then reputed to be at least a hundred years old, is mentioned in Llewellyn Jewitt’s Ballads and Songs of Derbyshire, written in 1867. By some accounts the first President of the United States, George Washington, once sang ‘The Derby Ram’ to the twin sons of Oliver Ellsworth while staying at their family home at Hartford, Connecticut. As Washington died in 1799 aged 67, he must have known the song from much earlier in the 1700s, which confirms Llewellyn Jewitt’s comment about its age. Since then various versions of the song have been taken up by a number of groups associated with Derby.

Derby County FC was founded in 1884 and in the 1890s adopted the black and white colours the club still uses in home games at Pride Park. It was around this time that they appropriated the nickname The Rams, in tribute to its links with the then 1st Regiment of Derby Militia.

From its earlier links with the city, the local regiment took on The Ram as its mascot, something which has been carried forwards despite the frequent mergers with other Midlands’ Regiments. In 1858, the 95th Derbyshire Regiment was stationed at Kotah in India during the time of the mutiny and the Commanding Officer noticing a magnificent fighting ram tethered in a temple yard, ordered one Private Sullivan of the Number 1 Company to take the ram and have it slaughtered. Unfortunately for the officer, Private Sullivan and The Ram seemed to hit it off and it followed him contentedly, marching some 3000 miles throughout Central India with the Regiment.

He was present with the 95th during their engagements in six actions, as a result of which, in 1862 along with

the rest of the Battalion on parade at Poona, he received the ‘India Medal with Central India Clasp’. This medal can be found in the Regimental Museum Gallery in Nottingham Castle.

Known officially as Private Derby, each subsequent Ram has been held on the official strength of the Regiment. He has his own individual system of numbering – beginning with No 1 to the present 29th. In addition as he is on the ration strength, he is given his own regimental number – currently M/4970029 – and draws his rations like any other soldier, albeit he tends to favour a much different diet.

It is on record that Private Derby 1st as he became known fought in thirty three fights with other rams and was never defeated.

Unfortunately, he came to a sad end when he jumped over the wall of a well at Hyderabad Sind in 1863 and was drowned. Since that time there has followed a succession of fine Rams, each inheriting the title of ‘Private Derby’ followed by his successive number. The earliest replacement rams were presented to the Regiment in whichever part of the world they were serving at the time.

However, since 1912 it has become tradition with only the occasional departure for the Duke of Devonshire to present the Regiment with a Ram from the Chatsworth Swaledale Flock.

When on parade ‘Private Derby’ wears a coat of scarlet with Lincoln green and gold facings, the whole emblazoned with the Regiment’s main Battle Honours. Also on his coat is to be found a replica of his Indian mutiny Medal and in addition he now wears the General Service Medal1962 with the Clasp for Northern Ireland for he has been stationed there several times over the years.

On his forehead is to be found a silver plate suitably embossed with the regimental Cap Badge while a pair of silver protectors are fitted to the ends of his horns. These are not as might be imagined to protect the horns, but rather to protect the clothing of the Ram Major, Ram Orderly and visitors, of which he receives in great number each time he appears in public.

‘Private Derby’ has two handlers whose duty is to look after him at all times. The senior handler carries the rank of ‘Ram Major’ whilst the other has that of ‘Ram Orderly’. It is the Ram Major’s responsibility to prepare Private Derby for all parades and the many other appearances he makes from time to time.

They also escort Private Derby when he is on parade by standing, one on either side, leading or controlling him with two white ornamental ropes which are attached to his leather collar.

The Ballad of the Derby Ram (As set down by Llewellyn Jewitt in ‘Ballads & Songs of Derbyshire’ 1867) As I was gong to Derby, Sir, All on a market day, I met the finest Ram, Sir,That ever fed on hay.

Daddle-i-Day, Daddle-i-Hay, Fal-de-Ral, Fal-de-Ral, Daddle-i-Hay The Ram was fat behind, Sir This Ram was fat before, This Ram was ten yards high, Sir, Indeed he was no more.

Daddle-i-Day etc The wool upon his back, Sir, Reached up into the sky, The eagles made their nests there, Sir, For I heard the young ones cry.

Daddle-i-Day etc The wool upon his belly, Sir, It dragged upon the ground.

It was sold in Derby town, Sir, For four thousand pound.

Daddle-i-Day etc The space between his horns, Sir, Was as far as man could reach, And there they built a pulpit, Sir for the parson there to preach.

Daddle-i-Day etc The teeth that were in his mouth, Sir, Were like a Regiment of men, And the tongue that hung between them, Sir, Would have dined them twice and again.

Daddle-i-Day etc The Ram jumped o’er a wall, Sir, His tail caught on a briar, It reached from Derby Town, Sir, All into Leicestershire.

Daddle-i_Day etc And this tail so long, Sir, T’was ten yards and an ell, They made a goodly rope, Sir, to toll the market bell Daddle-i-Day, Daddle-i-Hay, Fal-de-Ral, Fal-de-Ral, Faddle-i-Hay

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DOWNSTREAM TO DERBY

This walk could not be easier to follow and as a result rather than give a blow by blow description of the route, what follows is more of a potted history of Derby and its surrounding villages. The route is simply to follow the right bank of the Derwent downstream from Darley Abbey Park as far as say Derby market place and return by following the opposite bank upstream back to Darley Abbey. In all, the distance is about four miles of flat easy walking which could be shortened by avoiding a visit to Derby, but that would mean missing the chance of refreshment in one of the many pubs and cafes around the city centre.

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A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE WALK 4 miles (5.5km) of flat easy walking following the bank of the river Derwent into Derby and returning along the opposite bank. A perfect family walk.

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PARKING: Darley Abbey Park. Derby DE22. Easily accessed from the A6/A38 Allestree roundabout.

REFRESHMENTS: The choices are endless as you hit the city centre at the halfway point of our walk.

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From the car park at the start of Darley Abbey Park, walk to your left across the field as far as a path following the river bank downstream. The park with its magnificent trees is a wonderful green way directly into Derby. Now owned by the city, it is all that is left of a once grand house, the remains of which stand on the hilltop. This is where a pleasant café offers light refreshments to the constant stream of parents with their toddlers or dog walkers for whom the park offers so much.

The park ends at an old railway bridge that once carried the long abandoned Great Northern Line on its way between Nottingham Victoria and Eggington Junction near Tutbury. Known as Handyside Bridge, the bowstring girder bridge was made by the local iron foundry of that name. Innovative in its day, Andrew Handyside, its designer, was so confident of its strength that he tested it by running several locomotives over it at once, a total of 432 tons. He also built the splendidly decorated bridge across Friargate on the Ashbourne road out of Derby. There was once a cantilevered pedestrian walkway to

one side of Handyside’s Derwent crossing, but as the main bridge no longer carries trains, it was removed some time ago.

3

Continuing downstream past riverside flats and now along a macadamed footpath, the next feature is St Mary’s triple-arched stone bridge. It was once the only river crossing north of the city. There has been a bridge on the site since at least the fourteenth century, replacing a dangerous

DOWNSTREAM TO DERBY ford. Such were the dangers of such an expedition that a chapel was built around the same time or maybe earlier than the bridge. Known as the Chapel of St Mary on the Bridge, it is a rare survivor from a time when people fording the river gave prayers for a safe crossing.

4

A matter of yards beyond St Mary’s Bridge, the sound of traffic thundering along the ring road and modern bridge comes as shock, but fortunately there is no need to use the road.

5

The riverside walkway continues beneath modern concrete with Derby Silk Mill directly in front. Currently undergoing restoration, the Silk Mill Museum will once again display a comprehensive list of Derby’s industrial heritage, from its early textile manufacturing to jet engines and high speed trains that can still be made at the Bombardier factory. The slender lines of the wrought iron gates to one side of the mill entrance were made in 1725 by the renowned Derbyshire craftsman, Robert Bakewell.

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Across a green space in front of the mill and looking towards the cathedral, a statue of Charles Edward Stuart, Bonnie Prince Charlie, commemorates not only the end of his abortive march on London, but is just one of the great and famous who have links with Derby.

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John Flamsteed the first Astronomer-Royal, several Lord High Chancellors and an Archbishop of York were educated at the old Derby School that once stood in the cathedral precincts. Great philosophers met within the city boundaries and Joseph Wright, Derby’s famous artist began to paint with light as the dominating feature.

Much of Derby’s ancient manufacturing industry can still be traced, not only does the silk mill still stand, but city centre streets give a hint of what once went on there.

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Full Street is where woollen cloth was ‘fulled’, or milled, to make it stronger.

Along with Florence Nightingale whose statue is outside the old city hospital, probably the first name to spring to mind when considering Derby’s prosperity, is Sir Henry Royce, the engineering half of Rolls Royce. Starting as a paperboy on the local streets, he became the world famous father of a firm designing and building state of the art jet engines and nuclear technology.

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The market place and city centre cafés are a short distance beyond the cathedral and assuming a stop is made there, it will be necessary to return upstream as far as Handyside’s Railway Bridge.

10 11

Cross over the river here and turn left, upstream on the far bank.

Even though you will pass it on your way along the riverside path, there is little to see of Roman Derventio on which Derby’s foundations rely. It marked an important north/south, east/west road junction beside the Derwent. As yet there is no hint of a bridge and perhaps the river crossing was made by ferry; certainly the Romans would have used the river to transport heavy goods. Beyond the group of houses surrounding the Roman site, an avenue of lime trees well to the right of the riverbank, make an attractive way of continuing the walk. They lead to a bend in the river where a small settlement once housed workers from the nearby cotton mill through which you will soon walk. Owned by the Evans family, the mill used the abundant power of the river in order to drive its machinery.

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A minor road wends its way through the mill yard, passing the Derventio Brewery and then out towards the river where vehicles crossing the bridge are obliged to pay a toll of one pound at the octagonal gate house.

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Once across the river where the thundering weir gives some hint of its power, the way forward is past interesting groups of cottages, but more importantly, a pub that still fills the only remnant of an Augustinian Abbey that once held sway here.

A DOWNHILL WALK

FROM MATLOCK MOOR

In case anyone tries to report me under the Trade Descriptions Act, I had better qualify the downhill bit. This walk starts by using the Matlock to Chesterfield and Sheffield number 17 service to reach the highest point on the walk, but although the walk certainly finishes in the valley bottom, there are inevitably a few ups, however for most of the way the walk is either on the flat or downhill.

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A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE WALK

8.5 MILES

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8½ miles (13.6km), mostly on defined paths and tracks, but some muddy sections after rain. Total descent 595 feet (186 metres) RECOMMENDED MAP: OS Explorer 1:25,000 scale; Sheet OL24 – The Peak District, White Peak Area.

PARKING: Pay parking in Matlock.

BUS ROUTE: No 17, Matlock to Sheffield via Chesterfield leaving at 10:10 am weekdays and Saturdays and 10:35 am on Sunday from the bus station near the Co-op. Book to the Wayside Farm stop which is the next after the Matlock Golf Club stop.

REFRESHMENTS: Food and drink are recommended at The Orangery Restaurant at Darley Dale.

We did this walk midweek when the Number 17 leaves the Co-op bus station in Matlock at ten past the hour (we left at 10:10am), but on Sundays and Bank Holidays, the equivalent bus would leave at 10:35am.

We took the bus as far as Wayside Farm, the stop beyond Matlock Golf Club and walked towards the headwaters of the Amber Valley before turning towards Flash Lane, one of the ancient routes out of the Derwent Valley.

A steep descent took us into Two Dales and then on towards the river bank where we followed Peak Rail’s track back into Matlock.

The weather at the time made us think that spring was not so far away, blackbirds and song thrushes were staking claim to their territories by singing their hearts out and while we never found any hazel catkins, there were a few early celandines lifting their golden heads on a sunny bank.

A DOWNHILL WALK

FROM MATLOCK MOOR leaving the bus walk back towards Cross a secondary road and go 1 On 10 Matlock for about 100yds and turn through a stile on its far side to right along Cuckoostone Lane, following it with forest to your right high above Matlock Golf Club.

the surfaced lane turns sharp 2 Where left beside a cottage, continue ahead

walk across a grassy meadow, then through another stile on its far side.

the wall bounding the next 11 Follow field on your right, but resisting the

temptation to go through a wide muddy gap, continue until you reach a wooden stile on your right. Cross it and then bear left on the pathless rough grass until you reach a grassy bridge over a partly opened culvert.

on to the now grassy track, going through a couple of gates along the way.

the corner of the forest 3 Reaching bear away slightly to the left of it,

aiming slightly to the right of another plantation. Cross a stile and then continue ahead crossing three more stiles in the intervening boundary walls.

4

When the modern roof of an intensive rearing shed comes into view, keep to its right and continue as far as the stile giving access on to Jaggers Lane.

Cross over and turn right.

5

Walk up the lane to the cross roads and turn left along the slightly busier road for about 100 yards.

a line of mature beech trees 12 Follow leading to a small rough wood. a tractor track, bear half left 13 Ignoring to reach a boundary wall. Follow this as far as Flash Lane. Go through a stile and turn left along the lane.

Flash Lane is another ancient packhorse road, this one offering a higher and drier way into Chesterfield than Jaggers Lane. the surfaced road turns sharp 14 Where left, walk forwards on to a wide earthen and sometimes muddy track through woodland.

a stile away from the road and When the track becomes surfaced as 6 Cross following the direction of occasional 15 it passes an old farm house, carry on waymarks, go downhill through scrub, forwards past boarding kennels and a couple of cottages until this lane makes a sharp left turn.

birch and bracken.

7

Coming into sight of a converted farmhouse, cross a narrow footbridge over a little stream and bear left to reach the access drive.

ahead again on a rough 16 Continue track, steeply downhill and with views

across nearby Hall Dale, drop down to a group of cottages on the outskirts of Two Dales.

the drive through fields to 8 Follow reach a narrow lane. Turn left along it

as far as the Two Dales to Chesterfield road.

care when crossing the main 9 Take road and be especially on the look

out for traffic appearing over the blind crest to your left. Climb over a narrow stile away from the road and ascend a small field to reach a stile in its upper boundary.

17

In order to avoid the hazards of a blind hairpin bend lower down, turn left at the road and walk uphill for about 100yards.

18

Turn right on to a narrow side lane and follow it steeply downhill into the hamlet of Ladygrove. Bear right at the junction with another lane coming

from the flourmills on your left the road until it begins to bear 19 Follow left and beside a farm converted into

holiday flats, turn left on a narrow field path.

left when joining a path coming 20 Turn from the village (pub on back lane)

on your right, following it alongside a stone wall until it comes level with a farm house. Look out for a narrow stone stile and turn right through it into a field.

21

Bear slightly to your right across the field to reach a surfaced path. Go to the left with it to reach a narrow side lane.

over and 22 Cross walk down the path

bounding the garden centre.

the busy A6 23 Cross with care and turn left following the footpath.

right on to 24 Turn Old Road, the next

turning and follow it as far as the Red House Hotel on the opposite side.

through a narrow 25 Go stone side adjacent

to the hotel and walk down a path to reach the railway line used

by Peak Rail.

and listen for 26 Watch trains, cross the line

and then turn left on the far side to follow the platelayers’ path alongside the railway and river towards Matlock.

concessionary way crosses the 27 Arailway bridge. Take this over the river and on the far side go down steps and then ignoring a narrow metal gate bear right and work your way down the wooded bankside to reach the riverside path.

Turn right along the path and follow it into Matlock town centre.

8.5

MILES

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Carrot, Orange and Walnut Cake

INGREDIENTS: 4 eggs 150g golden caster sugar 300ml sunflower oil 2 medium-large carrots, peeled and finely grated 300g wholemeal self-raising flour ½ tsp salt ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda 40g walnuts 20g sultanas Juice of one orange FOR THE ICING (OPTIONAL) 125g unsalted butter, softened 250g cream cheese Finely grated zest of 1 orange (reserve some for decoration) 50g-100g icing sugar, or to taste, sieved A few walnuts

DIRECTIONS: 1. Preheat the oven to 180˚C/gas 4. Grease and line a 23cm diameter, spring form or loose bottomed cake tin.

2. Put the eggs and sugar in a large mixing bowl.

Using a mixer, or electric beater, mix together for about 10 minutes, until pale, foamy and slightly thickened. Add the oil and beat for a couple of minutes more.

3. Combine the flour, salt and bicarbonate of soda then sieve them into the mixture, folding in lightly. Finally, combine the grated carrot, walnuts, sultanas and juice and zest of one

taste derbyshire orange Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 45-50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

4. Leave in the tin to cool completely before turning out.

5. The cake is lovely just like this but, if you’d like to ice it, beat the soft butter and icing sugar in a bowl until smooth and fluffy, then beat in the cream cheese and orange zest and a little orange juice. Sweeten to taste with sieved icing sugar. Spread over the cake when cold, then decorate with the zest of an orange and walnuts.

Apricot and Honey Stuffed Mackerel

INGREDIENTS 4 Small Mackerel 50g Dried Apricots 1tbsp Tarragon, chopped 2 tbsp of Clear Honey 50g Fresh White Breadcrumbs 150ml Dry White Wine 50g Butter 2 tbsp of Cream 1 tbsp Parsley, chopped Salt and Pepper

METHOD 1. Preheat oven to 190c 2. Chop the apricots and mix with breadcrumbs and tarragon.

3. Stir in the honey and season with salt and pepper.

4. Remove the heads from the mackerel and fill the cavity of the fish with the apricot mixture.

5. Butter a large ovenproof dish and arrange the mackerel in it.

6. Pour over the wine, dot with butter and cover with foil.

7. Bake for 35 minutes or until tender.

8. Remove the foil and stir the cream into the juices.

9. Garnish with the parsley and serve immediately.

taste derbyshire

Blueberry and Raspberry Lemon Drizzle Cake INGREDIENTS 225g Margarine / Butter 225g Golden Caster Sugar 4 Eggs 250g Self Raising Flour, sifted Grated Zest and Juice of 2 Lemons 100g each of Blueberries and Raspberries For The Syrup 8 tbsp Syrup 140g Golden Caster Sugar Grated Zest of 1 Lemon

METHOD 1. Preheat the oven to 180c. Line the base of a circular 8� cake tin and butter the paper.

2. Cream together the butter and sugar until light. Gradually beat in the eggs, adding a little flour towards the end. Beat in the lemon zest, then fold in the remaining flour.

3. Fold in 3 tbsp of the lemon juice, 3 quarters of the blueberries & raspberries and pour into the prepared tin. Smooth over and scatter the remaining fruit on top.

4. Bake for around 1 hour until firm.

5. Heat all the syrup ingredients in a saucepan. Whilst the cake is still hot, prick all over with a metal skewer and spoon over the syrup.

taste derbyshire

Salmon on Lemon and Herb Risotto INGREDIENTS 2 tbsp Olive Oil 1 Onion, finely diced 225g Arborio Rice 450ml Vegetable Stock 250ml Water 300ml Dry White Wine 85g Frozen Peas Zest and juice of 1 Lemon 4 tbsp Chopped Fresh Herbs 4 Salmon Fillets 55g Butter

METHOD 1. In a pan heat some oil and sautĂŠ the onion until soft. Add the rice and stir until well coated with oil.

2. Add enough stock to just cover the rice and simmer until absorbed. Add more stock and repeat until all the stock and wine is used.

3. Add peas for last 3 minutes of cooking time and gently stir in lemon and herbs.

4. While the risotto is cooking, place each salmon fillet on a square of foil and top with the butter and lemon juice. Fold up the foil to make a parcel and cook in preheated oven at 180c for 15 minutes.

5. Serve the fish on top of the risotto and garnish with fresh herbs and lemon zest.

taste derbyshire

Barbecued Chicken Kebabs with Oranges and Lemons Ingredients 2 tsp fennel seeds, crushed 1 tsp dried oregano 3 tbsp olive oil Juice and zest of one orange 4 chicken breasts cut into 1 inch cubes.

For the Topping.

2 preserved lemons from a jar, halved and the pulp discarded a generous handful of flat leaf parsley 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped For the Dressing 2 tbsp lemon juice 2 tbsp olive oil

taste derbyshire

1. Soak 6 long wooden skewers in water for 30 minutes to prevent burning. Prepare and light the barbecue or cook in a heavy bottomed griddle,

4. Thread the chicken pieces onto the skewers and cook over the barbecue or on the griddle; turning frequently until golden and cooked through.

2. Pour 3 tablespoons of olive oil into a mortar and pestle and add the fennels seeds and oregano with a little seasoning and grind to a paste, stir in the orange juice and zest. Thread the chicken chunks onto the kebab sticks and layer in a flat bottomed dish. Pour over the oil mixture. Cover and put in the refrigerator for one hour at least.

For the dressing

For the topping 3. Cut the preserved lemons in half and carefully remove the flesh. Then slice the skins finely, mix with the parsley and garlic.

5. Just before serving, whisk the remaining oil and lemon juice together, put the chicken skewers on a serving plate, pour over the oil and lemon dressing and sprinkle over the lemon, parsley and garlic topping. Whisk the 2 tablespoons of lemon juice with 2 tablespoons of oil, season and drizzle over the chicken. Scatter the topping over the top and serve.

Coffee Crème Brulées

Ingredients 2 tbsp fresh strong coffee 600ml double cream 2 large eggs 6 large egg yolks 100g golden caster sugar 3 tbsp demerara sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 140˚c/275f/gm1 2. Make a cup of strong fresh coffee and leave to cool.

3. In a saucepan mix together the cream and coffee on a low heat, bring to a very gentle simmer, stirring occasionally and then remove from the heat.

4. In a mixing bowl whisk the eggs, egg yolks and caster sugar together taking care not to whisk too much air into the mixture. Pour in the warm cream and coffee, stirring continually.

5. Pour the mixture into the ramekins and fill to the top of each one. They need to be quite full so that the sugar will caramelise later. Place

taste derbyshire

these in a shallow roasting tin and carefully pour in hot water until it reaches halfway up the sides of the ramekins.

6. Bake in the middle of the oven until the brulée is softly set in the middle, usually about 35 minutes.

7. Remove carefully from the roasting tin and allow to cool. At this point you can put them in the fridge until the next day if you want to prepare them in advance.

8. Before serving sprinkle demerara sugar over the top of each ramekin and place under a hot grill. The sugar will quickly caramelise and turn golden brown.

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