People

  • Pedalling to freedom

    ‘Escape to the country’ has become a cliche; an empty phrase at a time when the countryside has become increasingly suburban. But a century ago, before mass car ownership, leaving the city was more difficult, dependent on bus, train or bike. Yet factory workers then probably had more incentive to escape, at least for a…

  • Inn with the inn-crowd

    As turnpike roads made travel more comfortable in the eighteenth century, roadside inns had to provide more services for coach teams as well as refreshments for the passengers. Previously they would have catered for travellers on horseback, or jaggers with their packhorse trains, but by the mid-century they might need stabling for 80 horses, as…

  • 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…