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“A fine lady upon a white horse …”
Woman riding side-saddle: No portrait of Celia appears to exist. Celia Fiennes (1662-1741) was a well-connected lady who toured much of England on horseback around the end of the seventeenth century. Her journal provides a rare insight into the Peak District at this time, before turnpikes but when ‘tourism’ was just beginning. Although independent female…
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…and miles to go before I sleep
The Roman legions are supposed to have been capable of marching 20 miles per day. Even allowing for the Roman mile being slightly shorter than the modern mile, reducing the length to about 18 miles, this still seems very ambitious. It assumes they were walking on fairly well-surfaced roads rather than rough ground, but they…
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On yer bikes!
A group of Ripley cyclists about 1914 Bicycles only became practical transport in the 1890s, with the arrival of the chain-driven ‘safety cycle’ fitted with pneumatic tyres. Priced at about £12, for the first time they brought leisure travel within reach of the skilled working man or women – playing a significant role in female…
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The Horsey World
A jolly holiday crowd at Matlock Bath Today it is easy to forget the importance of the horse before the twentieth century. Leaving cavalry and racing aside, they were critical in agriculture and travel, reaching a peak in the nineteenth century when there were an estimated three million horses in Britain. Selective breeding during the…
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Reinventing the wheel?
The wheel is often cited as a critical invention in the development of our civilisation, and today wheels are so abundant it is difficult to imagine life without them. Yet they arrived in Britain relatively late – Stonehenge was built by a wheel-less society. The earliest wheel found so far, in Flagg Fen in Cambridgeshire,…
The Old Roads of Derbyshire 