People

  • Driven by drovers

    Well into the twentieth century herds of cattle or flocks of sheep were a common feature of rural roads. Even after the coming of the railways, farmers often had little alternative to walking their animals to and from markets. As towns such as Sheffield and Chesterfield grew, the demand for meat meant that beasts had…

  • On the road – in style

    Although few people could have predicted it, in 1900 thousands of years of horse-drawn transport were coming to an end. Since the Bronze Age horses had provided the fastest means of movement, and thanks to better roads the range of vehicles increased dramatically in the nineteenth century, becoming more lightweight. For moving goods the two-wheeled…

  • Fixing a hole …

    Repairing holes in roads must have been one of the worst jobs in the pre-industrial world. Courbet was not the only artist attracted to the subject: his pair of stone breakers represent a class of unskilled labourers never previously regarded as a suitable subject for art, the viewer feels their dusty, sweaty toil . In…

  • The name of the bridge

    Whatstandwell must be one of the more bizarre place names in Derbyshire, mispelt on some old maps as ‘Hotstandwell’. In fact it commemorates Walter (Wat) Stonewell, who lived near the bridge, built by John de Stepul in 1391, according to records from Darley Abbey. The bridge was rebuilt in the late eighteenth century, and widened…

  • Derby at the crossroads

    This early plan of the town of Derby, drawn about 1760, shows how small the town was 250 years ago. The central area is framed by the Derwent to the east and Markeaton Brook to the west, at that time still an open stream. The town is divided into five parishes: All Saints (now the…