Blog archive

Here you will find the archive of all my published blogs.

  • Harboro’ highlife?

    Harboro’ Rocks seen from the High Peak Trail A couple of miles west of Wirksworth, just above the High Peak Trail, Harboro’ Rocks are a distinctive limestone outcrop rising to…

  • Baslow and beyond

    Driving on the busy A623 through Baslow today, it is easy to miss the medieval bridge next to St Anne’s church. Yet this was part of an important route in…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • On the road with Joseph Andrews

    Many of the earliest novels were effectively ‘stories of the road’, their plots centred on the journeys their heroes were making – books such as Don Quixote and The Pilgrim’s…

  • Clegg’s travels

    James Clegg (1679 -1755) was for many years a minister at Chinley Chapel, near Chapel-en-le-Frith in north Derbyshire. There are no surviving pictures of him, but we know more about…

  • Afoot with Karl Moritz

    Karl Moritz was a prolific German writer who, in 1782, spent two months touring England, reaching as far north as Derbyshire. Clearly an adventurous character, what is especially striking is…

  • Too many ways?

    It took 30 years for the first national long-distance trail, the Pennine Way, to be opened. In 1935 an article by Tom Stephenson suggested the creation of the route, inspired…

  • Riding with Cobbett – 2

    In the early modern period, gentlemen – and the more daring ladies – preferred to travel on horseback. William Cobbett, touring England in 1822 for his masterpiece ‘Rural Rides’, explains…

  • 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…

  • Riding with Cobbett -1

    William Cobbett (1762-1835) was a radical farmer, journalist and campaigner who travelled extensively in England in the 1820s and 1830s, inspecting the state of farming and farm workers. His reports,…

  • Rain

    It’s easy to assume that every extreme weather event – heatwave, drought or flood – must be the product of global warming. However, the storm that hit Derbyshire almost exactly…

  • 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…

  • Love in the slow lane

    Before the mid-twentieth century many homes were overcrowded, with a lack of privacy that would surprise younger people today. Furthermore, parents were often inclined to supervise their children’s indoor behaviour,…

  • Church paths and coffin paths

    In medieval England many parishes, especially in upland areas. were larger than they are now, and parish churches consequently were more dispersed. Although not everyone attended church regularly, for most…

  • Signposting the Peaks and Paths

    Many progressive social movements, such as the Cooperative Society, started in the Manchester area, and in 1894 this was the birthplace of one of Britain’s oldest footpath protection clubs, the…

  • Tolls, riots and Rebeccas

    Many toll houses survive in Derbyshire (see previous blogs) but the only surviving ensemble of cottage, gate and board of charges is found at the National Museum of Wales, near…

  • 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,…

  • Bridge building

    In the current dry weather it’s quite easy to climb down and inspect the underside of the arches of Matlock bridge, a structure thought to date from the fifteenth century.…

  • What’s going on at Wingfield?

    The ruins of Wingfield Manor are an impressive sight, on a hill overlooking the River Amber and above the village of South Wingfield. The manor was only a mile west…

  • Surprising Bradbourne

    Halfway between Brassington and Tissington is the small village of Bradbourne, with a population of just over a hundred. Yet the substantial church was once part of a priory, and…

  • The two Williams

    Diaries can be a useful source in studying travel patterns in the past. William Hodkin was a farmer and general dealer at Beeley, on the Chatsworth estate in the mid-nineteenth…

  • Defoe’s Derbyshire tour

    Few people living in Derbyshire in the eighteenth century have left an account of their travels; clearly they didn’t feel any need to describe their everyday experiences. Therefore it is…

  • The Stonehenge of the north?

    Between Buxton and Youlgreave, high up above the Derbyshire dales, Arbor Low is the largest henge monument in the north of England. The November morning I visited was bleak and…