County in England
Derbyshire
A village that shut itself away to stop the plague spreading, a football match with almost no rules, and a pudding born of a cook's mistake: welcome to Derbyshire.
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Key information
- County
- Derbyshire
- Nation
- England
- Known for
- The Peak District, Chatsworth House, Bakewell pudding, Eyam, Shrovetide football, Rolls-Royce
- What locals are called
- Derbyshire folk; the traditional greeting is "ey up, me duck"
- Famous people
- Joseph Wright of Derby, Bess of Hardwick, Richard Arkwright, Florence Nightingale
- Football clubs
- Derby County (the Rams), Chesterfield (the Spireites)
About Derbyshire
The village that locked itself in
In 1665 a bundle of cloth reached the Derbyshire village of Eyam, and with it came the plague. The story goes that a tailor's assistant, George Viccars, opened it and fell ill within days. What happened next is one of the most remarkable acts of collective courage in English history. Led by the rector William Mompesson and his predecessor Thomas Stanley, the villagers agreed to cut themselves off from the outside world so the disease would not spread to the towns around them. Supplies were left at boundary stones, and payment was made with coins dropped into vinegar. Eyam still marks it every year with a commemorative service, and its cottages carry plaques telling who lived and died in each one.
Britain's playground was won by trespassers
The Peak District covers much of northern Derbyshire, and in 1951 it became the first national park in Britain. The way there was rough. On 24 April 1932 hundreds of walkers walked up Kinder Scout, the highest hill in the county, in a deliberate mass trespass onto grouse moor that was closed to the public. Several of the ramblers were jailed afterwards. The protest became a landmark in the fight for the right to roam. Today you can walk Kinder Scout freely, and Mam Tor, nicknamed the Shivering Mountain for its crumbling shale face, is only a few miles away. Below ground, Castleton is the only place in Britain where the purple-streaked fluorspar called Blue John is mined. Its Peak Cavern has one of the biggest natural cave entrances in the country, and its local name, the Devil's Arse, has been making schoolchildren giggle for generations.
A palace in the Peak and a house made of windows
Chatsworth House, home of the Dukes of Devonshire, is one of the most famous stately homes in England. Its gardens were reshaped by Capability Brown, and in the 19th century its head gardener Joseph Paxton built a vast glasshouse there, the Great Conservatory. The experience helped him design the Crystal Palace for the Great Exhibition of 1851. Nearby is Hardwick Hall, built by the formidable Bess of Hardwick, who married four times and rose to be one of the richest women in Elizabethan England. Her house is so full of windows that locals made up a rhyme: "Hardwick Hall, more glass than wall." Haddon Hall, meanwhile, is a medieval manor so unspoilt that film crews queue up to use it.
Where the factory was invented
Derbyshire's rivers powered the first industrial age. The Lombe brothers' silk mill on the Derwent in Derby was built between 1717 and 1721 and began operating in 1721, an early example of a large factory. In 1771 Richard Arkwright built his water-powered cotton mill at Cromford, and the Derwent Valley's mills later became a World Heritage Site. Rolls-Royce moved to Derby in 1908 to build cars. Aero engines came during the First World War, and its first, the Eagle, first ran in 1915. Another local great, the painter Joseph Wright of Derby, made a name for himself by painting scientific experiments and furnaces by candlelight, turning the Industrial Revolution into high art. The county also gave the world Florence Nightingale, who grew up at Lea Hurst near Matlock.
Pudding, cheese and a football match with no rulebook
Bakewell pudding (never call it a tart in town) is the county's best-known sweet. Legend says it was created when a cook at the White Horse Inn misunderstood instructions and spread the egg mixture over the jam instead of mixing it into the pastry. Derbyshire also makes Stilton, a cheese so strictly protected that it can only be made in this county, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire, with Hartington among the makers. Each Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday, the town of Ashbourne holds Royal Shrovetide Football. Two teams, the Up'ards and the Down'ards, depending on which side of the Henmore Brook you were born, battle through the streets and fields, with goals three miles apart. There are almost no rules, and shopkeepers board up their windows. In summer, villages across the Peak decorate wells with pictures made from flower petals pressed into wet clay. Well dressing is a Derbyshire speciality, and Tissington and Tideswell are among the best known.
Clough, crooked spires and the Rams
Derby County, the Rams, are named after the Derby Ram, a folk song and a mascot. Under Brian Clough and Peter Taylor they were champions of England in 1972, a story still told with awe in the East Midlands. Chesterfield FC are nicknamed the Spireites, after the church of St Mary and All Saints, whose spire is both twisted and leaning. Local legend blames the devil. In cricket, Derbyshire won the County Championship in 1936. Derbyshire is also a great place for reservoirs. At Ladybower the villages of Derwent and Ashopton were drowned beneath the water, and the nearby Derwent Dam was used by the Dambusters to practise for their raid in 1943.