derbyshire days out – Country Images Magazine

Walks

Walk from Ilam Hall down the Manifold

September 30, 2015 BrianSpencer

Tucked away on a tree shrouded bend of the River Manifold, Ilam village was built in the 1830s on the instructions of Jesse Watts-Russell. The original Victorian houses forming the village still echo the fairytale image of the settlement, built at a time when skilful labour was cheap. It was also a time when people […]

Walks

Walk around Ashover

August 27, 2015 BrianSpencer

Ashover and the upper reaches of the Amber Valley has always been one of my favourite walking areas. Surprisingly it is not all that well walked, maybe it gets overlooked by its proximity to the Peak District’s moors and dales, but it does deserve to be better known. As an indication of its lack of […]

Walks

Walk around Wirksworth

August 25, 2015 BrianSpencer

This is probably the shortest walk I have taken. Although only 2½ miles or thereabouts it is full of historical interest and if, like me you do a bit of exploring, then it can become an all- day walk. Directly from the start, the walk enters the realms of Wirksworth’s lead mining history. The stubby […]

Featured

Lady Arbella Stuart

August 25, 2015 BrianSpencer

Derbyshire’s would-be Queen of England Hardwick Hall – ‘More Window than Wall’ was four-times married Bess of Hardwick’s crowning masterpiece. An ambitious woman whose successive marriages had left her the richest woman in England after Queen Elizabeth I. She planned her ‘New House’ at Hardwick to be a palace fit for the Queen of England; […]

Lost Houses

Derwent Bank at Darley Abbey

August 20, 2015 Steve Orme

Last month I wrote of an extraordinary house designed by the Derby amateur architect, banker, tax official and serial Mayor of Derby Alderman Richard Leaper (1759-1838), Mill Hill. Poor Leaper’s oeuvre has suffered rather badly from 20th century demolitions, however, so I thought we ought to look at another of his lost houses whilst the […]

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Bolsover Castle

August 1, 2014 Alistair Plant

To many people Bolsover still evokes collieries and chemical works, but for good or bad all that is now in the past and the hilltop town and its castle has returned to its early glory. Approaching from the M1 or Chesterfield, the road climbs steeply from the Doe Lea Valley. This is where the […]