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  • Searching for Derventio

    The Roman settlement at Little Chester, near Derby, is the key to Derbyshire’s Roman road network, a network that still influences the modern road system. We are fortunate that the antiquarian William Stukeley left this detailled plan, showing that three hundred years ago the Roman fort was still clearly defined on the east bank of…

  • The elusive Elizabeth Strutt

    There’s a common misconception that few people travelled before the nineteenth century, due to the state of the roads. In fact, the economic and agricultural progress of the eighteenth century would have never happened without extensive journeying, as illustrated by the letters of Jedediah and Elizabeth Strutt, who both grew up in Derbyshire in the…

  • Crossroads Crich

    Burdett’s map (above), first published in 1767, is the earliest large-scale map of the roads around Crich, but even the  revised 1791 version fails to show the Cromford/Langley Mill turnpike of 1766. The Oakerthorpe/ Ashbourne road is marked by a double solid line with mileages, minor roads are shown by double broken lines, but footpaths…

  • Riding through the glen …

    When I was a young boy in Nottingham, in what now seems the Middle Ages but was actually the 1950s, we loved playing at Robin Hood. Inspired by the TV serial and song (Robin Hood, Robin Hood, Riding through the glen) we could make a primitive bow and arrows ourselves, and finding a green cap…

  • The travels of the Bakewell Crosses

    There are a surprising number of pre-Conquest stone crosses in Derbyshire, but Bakewell churchyard must be unique in having two. The larger one can be seen above, near the eastern end of the church, with carvings on all four sides, but with the cross head missing. The carvings are both worn and defaced, but on…