history derbyshire – Country Images Magazine

Lost Houses

Lost Houses of Derbyshire – Brizlincote Old Hall

June 3, 2023 Alistair Plant

The present hall at Brizlincote is visible for miles around, set on its dominant hill and looking for all the world like an inverted helmet-type coal-scuttle with its legs in the air, represented, of course, by the chimneys and the giant segmental pediments which ensign the facades on all four sides. I have argued in […]

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From Hen Racing to a Bygone Industry What do you know about Bonsall?

April 26, 2022 Alistair Plant

Bonsall is tucked away in an upland bowl, high above the Derwent Valley and seems a place where time has passed it by. Nevertheless it has been home to a proud group of villagers since long before William the Conqueror’s scribes listed it as Bonteshall in the Domesday Survey. Its early prosperity was based on […]

Lost Houses

The Lost Houses of Derbyshire – Pilsley Old Hall

January 9, 2022 VickyP

The last lost house about which I wrote was Coney Green Hall, bought in 1774 for £4,000 by Thomas Wilson, who also acquired Pilsley Old Hall, just over two miles away and still in North Wingfield parish, so it seemed logical to move right on to chronicle what we know about the latter. The Old […]

MC Dec 21 BRETTON 18 9 21 VIEW SE TO EYAM

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Places Pevsner Forgot III – Froggatt & Bretton

November 26, 2021 Alistair Plant

There have to be places that Sir Niklaus Pevsner omitted simply because the buildings there were not really worthy of record, but whilst one could not really say that about Froggatt, with Bretton it is different, for there are precious few buildings there in any case, but, like Aston and Thornhill, the scenery is electrifying. […]

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Travelling Through History – Where Our Forebears Trod 3

November 26, 2018 VickyP

Having looked at Rykneild Street going South West, I felt it might risk any enthusiast rather hanging in the air if I did not continue the story of the same ancient road in its opposite direction. After all it was the Romans’ major SW to NE route, and it seems rather to have pivoted at […]

Lost Houses

Lost Houses of Derbyshire – Langley Hall, Meynell Langley

October 25, 2018 VickyP

The history of Langley, just north west of Derby on the road to Ashbourne, is complex to say the least. As a consequence, it is not without its fair share of lost houses, about one of which we have sufficient information to be able to say something about it. The manor of Langley originally consisted […]

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Historic Steam Railway Posters

September 4, 2018 VickyP

When I was just five Maude, my nanny, was charged to take me off on holiday to Plymouth. I have no idea to this day why my parents could not go with me, but we were to stay with a relative of Maude’s for a few days. Clearly my parents were staying behind for some […]

Lost Houses

Lost Houses of Derbyshire – Devonshire House, Derby

September 4, 2018 VickyP

A great friend who is the senior caseworker for the Georgian Group, was asked by the City Council to comment on an application to convert the upper floors of 35, Cornmarket into flats. Our own Conservation Area Advisory committee, which until recently I chaired, had already questioned the applicant’s desire to remove the surviving staircase […]

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Derbyshire Antiques & Collectibles – Vintage Telephones

June 5, 2018 VickyP

Those of us over a certain age will know that, until 1984, when the GPO (Post office telephones) monopoly was broken up, one did not actually own one’s telephone, but rented it from the GPO along with associated installations. Thus there was very little choice over the type of telephone one could have. Collecting these […]

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Derbyshire Antiques & Collectibles – Railway Locomotive Name Plates

February 27, 2018 VickyP

Last year we had a whole bunch of railwayana through Bamfords, mainly authentic relics of the great age of travel, but amongst them the nameplate of a locomotive built by the Southern Railway just after the Second World War and known to enthusiasts (in my time at least) as a ‘spam can’. These were large […]