People

  • Signposting the Peaks and Paths

    Many progressive social movements, such as the Cooperative Society, started in the Manchester area, and in 1894 this was the birthplace of one of Britain’s oldest footpath protection clubs, the Peak and Northern Footpath Society. Today it operates in Lancashire, parts of Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Cheshire and Staffordshire, with its headquarters in Stockport. Partly thanks to…

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  • The two Williams

    Diaries can be a useful source in studying travel patterns in the past. William Hodkin was a farmer and general dealer at Beeley, on the Chatsworth estate in the mid-nineteenth century. He kept a diary, mainly of his farming work, from 1864 to 1866, which reveals the shape of his trading network. Although the station…

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  • Defoe’s Derbyshire tour

    Few people living in Derbyshire in the eighteenth century have left an account of their travels; clearly they didn’t feel any need to describe their everyday experiences. Therefore it is left to the handful of early tourists to provide an impression of journeying in the county three hundred years ago. Daniel Defoe was an early…

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  • The secrets of Shuckstone

    Starting from Whatstandwell Bridge, if you follow the track from the hamlet of Robin Hood up through the quarry and wood to Wakebridge, and then on past Wakebridge Farm up to the top of the hill, the route finally levels off and you come to Shuckstone Fields, behind Holly Grange Farm and above Lea. This…

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  • Saints and sinners

    This figure from Youlgrave church is thought to represent a pilgrim, with his (or her) staff and waist-hung satchel. We often think of pilgrimage in terms of the great medieval shrines of Christianity such as Santiago or Canterbury, but during the high middle ages (about 1100 – 1300 CE) many pilgrimages must have been more…

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