Month: January 2025

Lord Byng pays a visit

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The only known portrait

John Byng (1743-1813) was born into a family of soldiers and sailors, the younger son of the 3rd Viscount Torrington. He bought his commission in the Grenadier Guards when he left Westminster School, and retired as Colonel of the Regiment in 1780. Having no landed estate to look after, he decided to spend his early retirement travelling, and between 1780 and 1791 he rode thousands of miles around England, keeping an extensive record of his travels in a series of diaries. He had married, at the age of 24, Bridget Forrest, the daughter of an admiral, who went on to have 14 children with him, all but one of whom (unusually) survived infancy. Presumably Bridget was accustomed to having a semi-absent husband from his military years?

Willersley Castle, Cromford

There is clearly a sarcastic element of class consciousness in Byng’s comments on Richard Arkwright’s Willersley Castle when he visited Derbyshire in 1779:

‘Went to where Sr R.A. is building for himself a grand house in the same castellated stile (sic) as one sees at Clapham, and really he has made a happy choice of ground, for by sticking it up on an unsafe bank, he contrives to overlook, not see, the beauties of the river, and the surrounding scenery. It is the house of an overseer surveying the works, not of a gentleman …’.

Byng’s tone must be connected with his position as the younger son: he had inherited no castles, and in the aristocratic world of this period anyone who had actually worked for their fortune was worth a sneer.

Cromford Mills as were. Note the distant tower on Crich Stand, the predecessor of the war memorial

Needless to say, John Byng was equally unimpressed by the nearby mill: ‘Every rural sound is sunk in the clamour of cotton works, and the simple peasant is changed into the impudent artisan’. The fact that the ‘simple peasant’ had chosen to work in the mill, as a welcome alternative to lead mining or worse, may not have crossed his mind. But Byng’s reaction was typical of the many tourists who were beginning to scour the Peak District for the romance of wild scenery and Gothic views. His diaries, however, do give the flavour of travel 250 years ago: his servant often rode ahead to reserve rooms at an inn, and would carry a set of sheets so that his master didn’t have to sleep on the damp or dirty bedding often provided by the house!

Watery ways

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The Derwent Valley – backbone of the county

When the rains come the streams fill, and we become suddenly aware of the network of waterways that surround us. Normally just half visible, these then threaten to flood the roads and menace our houses. The most fundamental feature of the landscape, brooks and rivers have been flowing in their current courses for over ten thousand years since the last ice age, and have had a dominant influence on our history, as water sources, barriers and boundaries, and also as liquid energy.

The meanings of river names are remarkably impenetrable: unlike most village names many seem to be pre-Saxon, and some even hint at a pre-Celtic language. Kenneth Cameron[i] had a hard time explaining Amber, Dove, Wye, Noe, Lathkill, Derwent and Ecclesbourne (this one of the few ‘bournes’ in the county). Of course there are several River Derwents in England, and it appears to mean something like ‘oak river’. But when does a brook become upgraded to river? And when does the tiny sic (pronounced ‘sitch’) gain the status of a brook?

Due to their permanence, rivers have historically been used as convenient boundary markers, as with the Dove as the Staffordshire border or the Erewash marking part of the Nottinghamshire boundary. Within the county, streams may also mark parish or hundred (wapentake) limits. In lowland counties rivers were often navigable, yet in Derbyshire most were barriers rather than aids to travel. In wet winters larger rivers were often impassable, except where rare and expensive bridges had been built, such as at Cromford or Whatstandwell. Early routes avoided river crossings where possible and kept to ridgeways, above the thickest woods on the river banks.  Seasonal flooding was so bad in the lower Dove valley when Daniel Defoe visited in the 1720’s that he abandoned trying to reach Ashbourne from Derby.

The River Amber floods South Wingfield church – again

It is believed that in pagan times water spirits (or gods or whatever) were worshipped; water being seen as the source of life. There is substantial archaeological evidence of votive offerings (such as money or jewellery) being found at sites of wells or springs. So this may explain a Derbyshire mystery: why were some medieval churches built so close to frequently flooding rivers? All Saints at South Wingfield is regularly swamped by the Amber, and is well away from the main village, and the same goes for Duffield’s St. Alkmund’s, built right on the banks of the Derwent, as is, further upstream, St. Helen’s at Darley Churchtown. Were these built on ancient sacred sites, or were these locations convenient for baptisms – or both?

Well and spring below St John the Baptist’s church at Matlock Bath

Watermills were common before the Normans arrived, but it is noticeable that many in Derbyshire were located on minor rivers rather than on the Derwent. Presumably the large rise and fall of the Derwent made it more difficult to harness the river’s power. Some of the sites, for example on the Lea Brook at Smedley’s in Lea, seem today to have too little flow to power a mill wheel, but most had millponds to provide reserves of water during dry spells. When Arkwright built his first mill at Cromford he used the water from the Bonsall Brook rather than the nearby river. Later mills (e.g. at Milford and Darley Abbey) which did use the river required massive engineering works to create their weirs and leats.

[i] Cameron, K. (1959) The Place Names of Derbyshire Vol. 1

Farey’s footsteps

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John Farey Esq.

John Farey (1766-1826) was a geologist and mathematician who wrote an extensive report on agriculture in Derbyshire, early in the nineteenth century. To research the subject he clearly had to travel widely, and this experience led him to produce a shorter report on the roads of Derbyshire in 1807. Finding his way around was clearly a concern, as he writes scathingly about the state of the milestones (‘too much neglected’) on account of the lack of maintenance: instead they are ‘shamefully defaced’ by ‘idle and disorderly persons’. Similarly the ‘way-posts or finger boards’ (i.e. signposts) ‘are entirely defaced’ with ‘scarcely a single inscription legible’. Despite this anti-social behaviour, Farey also notes the use of Latin on some ‘wayboards’, notably Via Gellia in Bonsall Dale and ‘Equus Via Longford’ near Shirley.

The Rutland Arms, Bakewell

He does, however, approve of the ‘many excellent Inns’ on the county’s turnpikes, and mentions the Rutland Arms at Bakewell, the Eagle and Child at Buxton, the King’s Arms at Derby and the New Inn at Kedleston, among others. As a geologist he notices that Peak Limestone is hard and so good for road building, but that Magnesian Limestone is easily crushed into a ‘gritty mire’. This was probably the first time that a such scientific approach to road construction had been made.

Farey also approvingly describes a feature of roads in the horse era that few historians have noted. He sees that ‘throughout the County’ cottagers’ children, women and old men are seen ‘perambulating certain lengths of the public Roads’, which they patrol regularly ‘carefully picking up every piece of horse-dung that falls’, and then carry their collections in baskets on their heads for sale to local farmers. Apparently shepherds on the few remaining commons did the same. Farey does not provide details of the going rate for a basket of horse dung, but the practice is an indicator of the depths of poverty in the pre-industrial world. He goes on to complain of the practice of turning cattle and horses out into the lanes to feed on the verges, saying that his horse had been upset by these semi-feral creatures. However, despite his criticisms, Farey rates this county’s roads positively: ‘… after paying a good deal of attention to this subject in most parts of England, I think few of the counties excel Derbyshire as to its roads …’ .