People

  • Gell the Roman?

    When I was a child we were occasionally driven into Derbyshire as a holiday treat, and coming down the Via Gellia was one highlight of such trips. It seemed a very romantic route, winding and well-wooded within the steep-sided valley, with mysterious caves inviting exploration. Today the road seems a little less fascinating, more overgrown…

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  • Mr Wright paints Cromford

    Paintings and prints can help us understand the development of the road system, and reveal historical features not shown on maps. As Matlock Bath became an established tourist attraction in the late 1700s, visitors were also keen to visit Arkwright’s mill just up the road at Cromford, and be impressed by the scale of the…

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  • On the road with Joseph Andrews

    Many of the earliest novels were effectively ‘stories of the road’, their plots centred on the journeys their heroes were making – books such as Don Quixote and The Pilgrim’s Progress – while the form is still popular today e.g. The Lord of the Rings. This format provided the possibility of introducing a rich cast…

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  • Clegg’s travels

    James Clegg (1679 -1755) was for many years a minister at Chinley Chapel, near Chapel-en-le-Frith in north Derbyshire. There are no surviving pictures of him, but we know more about his life than is usual thanks to his diary, which he kept from 1708 until his death. As it was frequently necessary at that time…

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  • Afoot with Karl Moritz

    Karl Moritz was a prolific German writer who, in 1782, spent two months touring England, reaching as far north as Derbyshire. Clearly an adventurous character, what is especially striking is that he traveled on foot, when all but the poorest went on horseback. This gives his writings an unusual perspective, and his experiences, at a…

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