Places

  • 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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  • The mystery of the milestone

    Walking near Tissington the other day I stopped for a drink of water, and propped my walking pole on what I took for an old gatepost, embedded in the rather ragged hedge. Then I realised it wasn’t a gatepost, but was inscribed on the side facing the lane. The inscription was finely carved, in serif…

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  • Dalesway

    I’ve just walked the Dalesway, an 80-mile route from Ilkley in Yorkshire to Bowness-on-Windermere in Cumbria. It took Rene and me seven days to walk the Way, averaging about 11 miles per day. Such a lengthy journey takes some organisation, because of the need to arrange overnight accommodation at the right intervals – not easy…

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  • The Waters of Life and Death

    It is easy to forget the significance of a good water supply for both residents and travellers, something which is taken for granted today. But less than a century ago, up to 1940, the village of Elton was dependent for its water on Burycliffe Troughs, half a mile away, water which had to be laboriously…

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