-
Foul deeds in the wild Winnats
Travel has always been seen as a risky undertaking, the dangers ranging from dirty sheets and greedy innkeepers to wild animal attacks and highway robbery. Poor roads were (and still are) probably more of a threat to life and limb than highwaymen, but some of these became notorious in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries,…
-
Four legs good?
Dogs were the first animals to be domesticated, apparently during the last ice age, about 15 or 20,000 years ago. Hunters may have shared their kill with young wolves, who became camp followers and provided some services in return. Dogs could be trained to help the hunters by retrieving game, as well as guarding their…
-
A wandering minstrel I …
There is plenty of evidence that minstrels travelled around the country in the Middle Ages, performing in halls and taverns, and at fairs. But very little is known of the material they performed for their audiences, whether lordly or peasant. Nor do we know how far afield they travelled. However, James Wade of Cambridge University…
-
On the road to Dale
Compared with neighbouring Yorkshire, Derbyshire has hardly any visible remains of its abbeys. Even the location of Darley Abbey in Derby is uncertain, while Dale Abbey, between Ilkeston and Ockbrook, has just one solitary surviving arch (see below). The engraving above shows the state of the ruins in the eighteenth century, before the robbing of…
-
Chaps with maps
Part of Speed’s Derbyshire map of 1611: Wirksworth in centre. It is a mystery of history that maps in the modern sense, as aids to travel, did not appear until the early eighteenth century. A few maps survive from the Roman and medieval periods, but they seem to have been rare and would not have…
The Old Roads of Derbyshire 