Eighteen months after last appearing on the stage of Nottingham’s Theatre Royal, Gaynor Faye is coming back to the city which she says has a “special place in my heart”. That’s because the 49-year-old actor who is recognisable for stints in two television soap operas began her professional career in the city in 1992. She […]
The Lost Houses of Derbyshire – Fenny Bentley Old Hall
When travelling to Buxton from Derby, as we did in May to visit the annual Buxton Antiques Fair, we usually go via Ashbourne and the A515 rather than the A6, which is slower, if more direct. This takes us through Fenny Bentley and one of the delights of passing that village is to be able […]
Sheffield’s Industrial Heritage Brought To Life
The museum was founded in 1982 following a great deal of background work, by Councillor Enid Hattersley, mother of Lord (Roy) Hattersley, one time deputy leader of the Labour Party. The museum is an ideal place to take children, either as family groups or in school parties, a perfect way for them to learn about […]
Celebrity Interview – Jenna Russell
She’s a regular in the West End where she won one of the most prestigious awards in showbiz, she’s worked on Broadway and she took over as one of the main characters in the BBC soap EastEnders. Now Jenna Russell is coming to Nottingham. The actress and singer will play French cabaret performer and chanteuse […]
Lost Houses of Derbyshire – Field House, Spondon
Those familiar with the local photographic collections will perhaps be familiar with a photograph of this lost house’s south front labelled ‘Spondon Hall’ and this indeed, is a title to which Field House was attached from time to time, too. In its decline, however, it had become derelict, a natural playground for adventurous children (before […]
St Kilda – An Enchanting Island In The West
Walk Derbyshire – Combs Reservoir
Combs Moss is an outlier of the higher moors of the Daark Peak. It sits between Buxton and Chapel-en-le-Frith, mainly overlooking the latter. Looking upwards from Chapel, a long escarpment dominates the skyline, marked by two protruding side ridges radiating from its eastern edge. The further of the two, between Combs and Short Edges, […]
Walk Derbyshire – Thorpe Cloud
Two prominent hills guard the southern entrance to Dovedale; bulky Bunster rises to the west at the end of a broad limestone ridge, while Thorpe Cloud’s graceful summit looks to the east. The steeper of the two, the Cloud has footpaths on three sides and as such has become a popular venue for walkers looking […]
A Brief Look Around Markeaton, Mackworth & Kedleston
Some of Derbyshire’s finest and most sequestered countryside may be found west of Derby itself, although it is countryside well removed from ‘classic’ Derbyshire: the spectacular sequences of White and Dark Peak. West of Derby is gently undulating arable country, scattered with miniscule villages, some shrunk, some beginning to expand again, interspersed with country houses, […]
The Lost Houses of Derbyshire – Stretton House
Stretton, along with Measham and Appleby Parva (for the lost houses at which see Country Images December 2019 and October 2020), lay within a large ‘island’ of Derbyshire, separated since Saxon times from the bulk of the county, itself created in the mid-10th century. This ‘island’ also included Oakthorpe, Donisthorpe, Chilcote and Willesley (see Country […]