Leafy side roads lined with pleasant houses, home for many Derby commuters, fill a sheltered hollow where the Ecclesbourne meets the River Derwent. Regular flooding by the latter meant that development was kept well above the water meadows lining both sides of the meandering river. After the Norman Conquest, the village became a kind of […]
Product Test – Miller Harris
For more information and to buy online visit www.millerharris.com Scherzo Body Wash £24 Lose yourself in your own story with the unique character and intensity of our Scherzo Body Wash. Every lather unleashes a new chapter of lavish richness with the heady combination of Davana, Patchouli and Oud. With coconut extracts and vitamin E to […]
Lunch at Meynell Langley
There aren’t many of them left; I’m talking about nurseries. Not the ones where you abandon your offspring but the places where you can buy plants that have probably been grown from seeds or cuttings by the person who served you. The family-run Meynell Langley Gardens is one such place. It’s a retail nursery and […]
Walk Derbyshire – Bretton Clough
Starting from a popular pub, the Barrel Inn, which is the focal point of the hamlet of Bretton, a small hamlet high on Eyam Edge, the walk enjoys delightful views over the surrounding countryside. Wooded valleys, one of which, Bretton Clough, is the focal point of this walk. By tradition Bretton Clough is where the […]
Celebrity Interview – Joe Absolom
By Steve Orme Reading an obituary of the award-winning thespian Sir Antony Sher was the start of an epiphany for Joe Absolom. The 43-year-old actor who came to prominence as Matthew Rose in the BBC soap EastEnders noted Sher’s success and thought that if anyone read Joe’s obituary, it would be really boring. “He did […]
A quick look at … Earl Sterndale & The Upper Dove Valley – part two
Having adjourned to the Pack Horse Inn at Crowdecote, we felt duly refreshed, and continuing our journey took the turning north, back alongside the Dove, out of the hamlet heading for Earl Sterndale. The road soon leaves the river and climbs gradually, passing the diminutive settlement of Abbot’s Grove; until the 20th century Abbots Grove […]
The Lost Houses of Derbyshire – Culland Hall
by Maxwell Craven It is perhaps quite a stretch to envisage the sheer antiquity of the site of Culland Hall, were you to visit the place today, the splendid gardens which are occasionally open to visitors and which are well worth visiting. Indeed, the present house is an agreeable neo-Georgian brick mansion, much in the […]
Exploring The Castle, Colleges & Cathedrals of Durham City
By Brian Spencer Having only seen Durham city from the train stopped at Durham Station, perched on a ledge high above the River Wear, Brian Spencer vowed that one day he would spend more time exploring the city, but it took a short break with Slack’s Coaches, basically to visit the unique museums nearby (see […]
Earl Sterndale & The Upper Dove Valley pt.1
Nucleated settlements are fairly scarce in the White Peak and the upper Derwent Valley, partly because the relief is challenging, not to mention the constant outcropping of limestone. Partly also it is because Saxon settlement came late to this part of Derbyshire, probably not starting in earnest until after around 640, and post-Roman British settlement […]
Walk Derbyshire – Historic Deepdale – A walk back into history
Deepdale you may ask, for the name doesn’t appear on any Ordnance Survey map? Now better known as Dale Abbey, the village was once called Depedale, then Deepdale and eventually the modern name, Dale Abbey in remembrance of the abbey that flourished here from 1162 until Henry VIII’s quarrel with Rome in 1536. A lonely […]