Places

  • Beating the bounds

    This stone, partly broken, can be found lurking in the hedge of the minor road that links Fritchley with Wingfield. Although partly broken, one side still reads ‘Winfiel(d)’ and the other ‘Crich’. Easily mistaken for a milestone, this is actually a boundary stone marking the limits of these two parishes, marked BS on Ordnance Survey…

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  • Waterloo sunset?

    In an age of instant news, when an election result in the USA is available instantly on our phones, it’s hard to imagine a time when news of events even a hundred miles away could take weeks to reach Derbyshire. Before railways and national newspapers began to shrink distances a frequent source of information was…

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  • Canal competition

    For thousands of years goods had to be carried by roads, and a horse and cart could move about a ton of stone or coal. But with industrial growth in the eighteenth century increasing demand for raw materials canals became a feasible mode of transport, a horse-drawn narrowboat could carry 30 tons. From about 1760…

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  • Millstoned

    The stone I found in my local woods recently is typical of the thousand-odd millstones scattered around the Peak District – and are used as a symbol for the National Park. Clearly fashioned from the gritstone of the ‘edge’ behind me, this example raises some intriguing questions: who made it? why was it abandoned? how…

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  • Rambling around Ryknild

    Ryknild Street was the only long-distance Roman road that crossed Derbyshire, coming from Lichfield to the camp at Little Chester and then on to Chesterfield. Part of its route is still used today, notably the A61 from Higham through Stretton and Clay Cross to Chesterfield. There is little trace of the first part, through Breadsall…

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