A Day Out in Derby

The first things you will notice as you enter Derby cathedral are the wrought iron gates. These were made by Robert Bakewell but not for this Church, the ones he made for this church were sold in the 1870’s, why, no one knows. It wasn’t until 1927 that the Parish Church of All Saints became the Cathedral for the Diocese of Derby. There has been a church on this site for over a thousand years. Credit for its founding is given to King Edmund in 943 and in the twelfth Century it was gifted by the King to the Dean of Lincoln Cathedral. That Saxon Church no longer exists; it was replaced at some point in the fourteenth century.

That church had a rectangular tower at the west end which must have become unstable because it was replaced by a new tower, which is the one that you see today between 1510 and 1530. Even though Derby is quite a good sized city today you will have no problem finding the cathedral even if you just use your eyes to locate the tower, it soars above the city still. During the Reformation the rich vestments and trappings were destroyed and during the reign of Queen Mary a parishioner who could not accept the doctrine of transubstantiation was burned as a heretic, she was blind and only 22 years of age.

During the Civil War the church seems to have avoided some of the destruction that affected other churches, though the records report an excessive amount of glass replacement expense. In 1723 the old church was demolished and a new one was added to the 16th century tower. It is simple and built in a classical style. You will notice as soon as you walk in how light and bright it is and so different from what you expect having seen the exterior. The interior has a wonderful wrought iron screen extending across the whole width of the church, also made by Robert Bakewell.

One of the problems with tearing down the old church was that many of the old memorials were lost. One however which wasn't was that of Bess of Hardwick. She was an amazing woman, contemporary of Queen Elizabeth I who had four husbands, each one richer than the last. She is associated with Hardwick Hall and Chatsworth and since 2008 is the 400th Anniversary of her death there are many special celebrations happening all over Derbyshire this coming year.

One of the unusual details in the church is the mayor’s pew. It is decorated with a Robert Bakewell ironwork medalion which has the City badge, a stag enclosed palings, know as the Buck in the park.

Another thing to look for is the alabaster memorial slab of John Lawe one of the sub deans in the fifteenth century. This was a floor slab but now is standing upright. Also look for Wright of Derby’s tombstone which was moved from St Werburghs Church-yard.

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Part of the Derby Museum and Art Gallery along with the Silk Museum this is a pretty little house museum that is a snapshot of what life was like in a Georgian Household. Joseph Pickford had this home built for his family in the mid eighteenth century. He was an architect and he had his workshop also on the property. None of the original furnishings are in the house but things that might have been there are. Stop at the gift shop and get a brochure and a photography pass if you want take photos for your own use, the charge is one pound.

The first room you visit is the morning room. The lady of the house is seated at her pianoforte picking out a tune and there is a tea set up on the table. This room is one that may not have served this purpose when the Pickford family was in residence. There is some evidence that this room may have been Mr. Pickfords Office.

As you go into the Front Hall you will notice that there is a TV and if you choose there is a 15 minute video that you may watch, just ask the staff. We chose not to spend the time, also there are only two chairs, The Hall does however have a lovely ceiling, take the time to enjoy it.

The drawing room has a lovely fireplace which though no the one original to the room is from Mundy House in Wardwick Derbyshire. It is from about 1790 and seems to be by the same man who made the fireplace for the Dining Room here at Pickford House.

I think the Dining Room was our favorite. It is set for a dinner for six and has all the things that a formal dinner would require, a silver nutmeg grinder, Wedgwood dessert custard cups, Sheffield Plate candlesticks, Derby dessert set and ever so much more. We spent quite a while just trying to figure out what everything was. There is a servant present and he is getting things ready for the dinner.

I loved the second floor. It is filled with several rooms of costume. This is far more interesting than your usual costume museum. There is a case of Victorian woman’s Undergarments that is enough to make any modern woman shudder. There are two cases of children’s clothes, one of boys one of girls. In the next room there is a case of the different dresses that a woman would need on any given day just to go about her day. Morning dress, walking dress, evening dress etc. You will enjoy reading the story of the clothing revolution that was going on as woman in particular decided that comfort and practicality counted.

The third floor has a servant bedroom and The Frank Bradley Collection of Toy and Model Theatres.

The basement has a kitchen, laundry and brew house.

Dating from the early seventeen hundreds this mill bills itself as England’s first. It was built for the Lombe brothers to house machines copied from the Italians for doubling or twisting silk into thread. Previously this work had been done in the workers homes but these machines were too big for that. This location beside the River Derwent provided the power they needed. Today only stone foundations remain of the original building. As the oldest silk mill this place has been a tourist destination for over 200 years and the people who visited were not always complimentary about the conditions at the mill. A devastating fire in 1910 destroyed a great deal of the building which was rebuilt around the tower but to only three stories not the original five. There are gates done by the local Robert Bakewell in wrought Iron.

The building is visited on a self guided tour. There is an elevator, take it to the second floor. Here you will learn about the beginnings of the silk industry in England. There is a mannequin of John Lombe who after you push a button will tell you the story of how he went to Italy and stole the design for their machines and brought it back to England.

After this section you will find many more exhibits on other industry in Derbyshire. There is an area that deals with the clay industry. This covers everything for clay piping to pottery.

A particularly interesting section of the museum dealt with health and medicine in Victorian Derby. Some of the popular cures seem very strange to a person in the 21st century.

If you have ever dreamed of being a railroad engineer you will have the ability to try your hand at it. Called "A Drivers Eye View" you get to sit in the driver’s seat and see the rails from that view. I personally could not stand it, it gave me motion sickness. Even a quick glance was more than I could tolerate. Everyone else seemed to enjoy it.

For the miniature rail enthusiast there is a room with lots of track and some very interesting trains. They are not moving but still worth viewing. Al was fascinated by the signal box recreation. I found it interesting as well, I guess I never though about how this was done.

After this you go down the stairs to the first floor. The first exhibit there is the Power Gallery. It features a water wheel, animal power, gas, steam, wind and electric. It gives examples of each and their many uses.

There was a temporary art exhibit which totally lost me and then the large exhibit of Rolls Royce engines. There is one plane engine that has a platform beside it so that you can climb up and get a close look. These engines are quite familiar to Al who works for United Technologies one of Rolls Royce’s competitors.

Entrance is free, photography only for personal use.

Unfortunately even a photo permit couldn’t help me here, you are not allowed to publish the photos so for my own use only. It is too bad because this is a great little museum and there are lots of things that I think would have made excellent subjects.

I begin my visit in the Origins of Derby Exhibit. The first few cases have to do with the Bronze Age. There are several cases of items such as knives, axe heads and spearheads. Most of them were found in rivers and marshes. It is not known why these valuable metal items would have been deposited in the Rivers but it may have been part of a ritual.

There are also items found in a Bronze Age burrow. The Bronze Age is 4200-2200BC. People were buried in log coffins and there is a whole display of pottery from this period. Many of these pieces of pottery are from Stanton Moor and others are from Stoney Middleton Dale.

The next section is the Roman period. There are jars that were used to hold beans, and were just that, it was the beans that were the important part in this time period. I liked a very pretty Simian Bowl with a hunting scene from the 2nd century CE. The remains of the graves of two children have been preserved; there are two bronze bangle bracelets and a bronze finger ring. An interesting finding was that people in this period were buried with shoes on. These are followed by a case showing a Romano-British kitchen and one with Roman and Medieval Coins.

I personally was fascinated by the bust of a Viking whose grave was discovered outside St Wystans Church. The artist used the skull to give us a very good idea what this warrior would have looked like. He died in 873-874. Repton was a mass grave with at least 249 people of which only 5 are woman; there are no evident injuries so it was disease that took their lives.

An Anglo Saxon grave site reveals lots of information about the lives of these people, an amber necklace, iron knife, silver finger ring and bronze buckle.

The Repton Stone dominates this portion of the Museum; it is what remains of an 8th Century Anglo Saxon Cross. One of the figures on the cross may be Aethalbald, King of Mercia who was murdered and buried at Repton.

One of the most amazing exhibits is in the next room. The Hanson Longboat. This is a Bronze Age Longboat that was discovered in a quarry at Shardlow. It is 3500 years old.
Also in this room are several works by George Turner called the Derbyshire Constable.

Up a short set of stairs is the Wright Gallery and it won’t disappoint. Joseph Wright has an amazing way with light and there is a room full of his works, some portraits and some landscapes. I loved "Cottage on Fire" and Grotto in the Gulf of Salerno.

In business since about 1750 in Derby the current factory has been at this four and a half acre location since 1878. Queen Victoria granted them the right to use the ‘royal" designation in 1890. You may choose to take a factory tour which are offered several times a day (be sure to call and find out exact times and make a reservation) or you can just see the decorating process and the museum. Since we have been on several factory tours we opted to just do the shorter version. This cost 2.95pds regular 2.75 concessions (students or seniors). Our guide was Sue Fisher and she began by taking us through the entire process from slip to finished product.

We see one of the pigs that they do as a piece of green-ware, once it has been fired, glazed, transfers added and then the hand painting. It was very interesting to see how different the pig looks at the different stages. Another interesting fact is that bone china has real bone in it.

She then takes us to the desk where the transfers are inspected and applied. It is a much more work intensive process than you would expect. Each of the colors on a transfer must drive for one day before a new color is added. That means it could be anywhere from seven days to 16 days, and that is for each pattern. These must then be inspected to make sure that they are perfect. Appling them is not an easy process either and again must be inspected to make sure it is perfect. The person who applies the transfer is called a lithographer and is paid by the piece so perfection is a good thing. Transfers can be removed until the piece is fired. Every lithographer has a mark that they place on every piece they work on.

One thing we learned was that if the crown on the bottom of a piece that you buy in the secondary market is scratched in any way no matter what kind of button it has the piece is a second.

The next process is the gilder. That is the job that Sue usually does and she uses the initial S. She showed us the way she applies the gilt. The bristles on her bush are made of squirrel fur. When I bought my little pin try in the shop at the end of the tour I made sure it had a letter S on it.



We then watched Jackie work on a $4000 peacock with handmade flowers, loads of hand painting and enough gilding to make it a truly unique and spectacular piece. These are among the many pieces that can be ordered on commission, in other words you can have it your way.

All the flowers are hand done and they employ only one flower maker these days. It takes him half a day to do the flowers for one of the peacocks.



On the second floor of the Visitor Center is the museum. It has rooms filled with cases of gorgeous bone china. I found several pieces that I would love to own, my favorite was an egg cruet with egg cups from the 1820’s. As an egg cup collector it would have been a delightful; addition to my collection.

When you are finished with the museum you can head to the shop. There are plenty of bargains to be had. Some of the dinner sets were marked 50% off. There were paper weights at one for full price a second at half price. I got 10% off my pin tray.

There are also cases filled with the best that Royal Crown Derby has to offer.

If you are hungry there is a café where we stopped to have lunch. They offer sandwiches, several hot cooked meals and tea and cakes. It was served cafeteria style and was appropriately priced.

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Located across Iron Gate from the Cathedral this Centre offers more than just your regular gift shop. The also have a sweet little coffee/tea shop and in the basement the Cathedral Treasury.

Let’s start with the gift shop, it isn’t just your regular gift shop, yes there are religious items, prayer books bibles and the like but there are also local products and crafts. Since it was early January there were some very good sales on Christmas items, in fact I bought some very English Christmas Cards, if you are on my list you may just get one next year. There were also sharply discounted Christmas puddings and cakes. I did look over the local jellies, jams and chutneys as well but the packaging was just too generous to make carrying them practical. They also have the usual tea towels postcards and souvenir items that you would expect.

We stopped at the restaurant to get a bite to eat since it was after 2:30 and we were a bit peaked. I ordered a bowl of their tomato and red pepper soup with a grainy roll. Al had a jacket potato with cheddar cheese that was so buried under the cheese it was hard to find the potato. Cubby had the same as Al and Joe had a jacket potato with just butter. For dessert Al and I shared a piece of very good lemon cake, it tasted homemade. They had a full range of sandwiches and melts as well as a couple of hot food choices. If you want to have lunch here you must arrive by 2:30 afterwards they only serve tea, they do however serve breakfast.

On the lower level is the treasury of the Cathedral. There are some chalices from the Cathedral as well as some from other parishes in the Diocese which are kept here for safe keeping. You will also get to see the Bishops crosier. There is nothing outstanding down here but it is worth giving it a look all the same. Among their treasures are a bible from the reign of Elizabeth 1, some Medieval fabrics, 18th century Exeter plate and a Charles I prayer book. Everything was not on display when we were there but I am sure it rotates.