July 2023 – The Old Roads of Derbyshire

Today few young children walk to primary school alone, for a variety of reasons including parental perceptions of danger. In fact, the image of mum in a large Range Rover driving her offspring to the school gates has become a cliche. Yet 150 years ago children who were lucky enough to go to school often had to walk for miles, especially in rural areas. To some extent this walking may have formed part of their education, as was the case with Alison Uttley, who later became famous for her Little Grey Rabbit books. Alison grew up in a struggling farming family at Castletop Farm between Cromford and Lea Bridge. She didn’t go to school until she was seven, due to the remoteness of their farm on Hearthstone Lane.

Lea Primary School on Church Street, Holloway was chosen by her parents due to its good reputation. But the journey home, although only a mile and a half long, meant walking from school down to Lea Road, past John Smedley’s mill at Lea Bridge and then climbing up through Bow Wood on what is now a rough track (but which was the old road before the turnpike was built by the Derwent), and emerging from the wood just below the farm. Alison had to do this walk twice a day, in all weathers, and in winter the homeward stretch would be in the dark, for which she was given a lantern.

The path through Bow Wood

Clearly the fears she felt on her walk had a major impact, for she describes the journey in several books:

“I set off home, running for the first mile, for it was downhill and easy. Then I passed a mill and walked up a steep field where cows grazed. I came to the wood, and stopped at the big gate to light the candle in my lantern. I shut the gate softly so that ‘they’ would not hear. The treees were alive and awake, they were waiting for me…”

She obviously had a powerful imagination, and perhaps this walk could be credited with launching her career as a storyteller, since she sometimes persuaded a school friend to walk with her, with the incentive of listening to the stories that Alison made up as they walked.

Alison’s walk to school can easily be followed today, either starting from Cromford Station and walking uphill to Castletop, and then through Bow Wood to Holloway, or the reverse route starting from Lea Primary School.

Sources

Judd, D (2010) Alison Uttley, Spinner of Tales, Manchester University Press

Uttley, A (1951) Ambush of Young Days, Faber & Faber

Peter and Hannah

Peter Perez Burdett (c.1734-1793) is a fascinating example of an eighteenth-century artist, surveyor, amateur scientist and … serial debtor! His map of Derbyshire (1767) is the first accurate survey of the county, at the scale of an inch to a mile, and is invaluable to local historians. He was a friend of the painter Joseph Wright, whose portrait of Peter and his wife Hannah (1765) shows them al fresco, as if posing on their country estate. Apparently she was a widow, somewhat older than Peter, and the marriage may have helped him raise capital for his mapping project. He is holding his surveying telescope, while she appears most unsuitably dressed for a country ramble! (Wright was a master of drapery). This double portrait can now be seen at the Czech National Gallery in Prague.

Plan of Derby from Burdett’s map of 1767

Burdett appears in several of Wright’s paintings, notably as the figure making notes on the left in Wright’s masterpiece, A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery (see below). But despite their friendship and his map-making achievements, Burdett chose to move to Liverpool in 1768, possibly to seek a new range of clients, but certainly to evade his creditors. There he surveyed the Liverpool – Leeds canal, and was also involved in the development of the new technique of making aquatints in 1774, producing several himself, and thus demonstrating his versatility.

Burdett makes notes

However, Burdett seems to have been again less proficient at managing his finances, since in 1774 he had to flee to Baden, in modern Germany, to escape his debtors. Leaving Hannah behind he, curiously, took their joint portrait with him! In Baden he found a patron in the Grand Duke, and also found a new wife, Friederike Kotkowski, who he married in 1787 at the age of 53. They had a daughter, Anna, who married into the local aristocracy. Peter was clearly successful in his new milieu, surveying schemes for the Grand Duke until dying in 1793 at the age of 59. His story illustrates the extraordinary versatility of many men (and some women) in this period of rapid social change and scientific advances.

The Old Roads of Derbyshire

Month: July 2023

Unwillingly to school …

Mr Burdett, map maker and …