This week we were back in Derbyshire for a couple of days.

Matlock Bath has been welcoming tourists for a long time (famous guests include Jane Austen, Lord Byron, and Mary Shelley). A much earlier source of livelihood (and one that persisted well into the 19th century) was lead mining, and even now, when you walk around this area, it's advisable to stay on the paths to avoid being swallowed up by hidden mine shafts.

The bulk of the first of our two days was nicely taken up with a beautiful walk that took in Matlock Bath, High Tor, and the Heights of Abraham (reportedly named after the Heights of Abraham in Quebec, Canada, scaled by British troops in 1759).

I'll let the photos tell that particular story:
















We stayed at Ashdale Guest House. Here you can enjoy a genuine 1840s building (complete with legally protected monkey-puzzle trees), and a classic English breakfast in the equally classic dining room.



Strolls around Matlock Bath in the evening and morning light are definitely recommendable, even in the cold. There's some poignant World War I history on display.






Not far from Matlock Bath is Cromford. This would be worth noting if only for the scones from Parkys Eatery and the walk-fuelling Stilton buns from the Arkwright Stores.



But, as we discovered on our second day, there's much, much more...

The Cromford Canal (completed in 1794) once transported coal, limestone, and cotton. The Cromford and High Peak Railway -- designed on the principles of a canal -- connected this canal and the Peak Forest Canal at Whaley Bridge, and there's an interesting exhibition about all this at the High Peak Junction Visitor Centre.









Cromford Mill, built by Richard Arkwright and partners in 1771, and considered "one of the first modern factories", pioneered water-powered spinning and industrial-scale cotton production.





A short walk away is the Masson Mills Working Textile Museum (and associated shopping centre).



The interior is extraordinarily photogenic.











On the way home, we stopped briefly in Chesterfied, largely to photograph the unique church spire.




Chesterfield is one of the many English towns that have experienced a reorientation away from manufacturing towards the service and retail sectors.

Indeed, as you travel round Derbyshire, you can't help but be struck by two things:

1. The seminal influence of the 1700s (which, I confess, have often tended to get squeezed out of my historical consciousness by the 1800s); and
2. The extraordinary amount of social change that has been experienced in these parts.

The coming of the canals and then the railways engendered social dislocation and environmental manipulation. Arkwright and his cloth-production revolution fit right into the pattern of capitalist industrialization that we are still struggling to come to terms with now. The pre-industrial, industrial, and post-industrial eras are all discernible in Derbyshire, which saw peasants and artisans driven into waged labour, and hubs of manufacturing eventually turned into purveyors of heritage and leisure.

(By chance this week, I came across this review of Michael Perelman's The Invention of Capitalism, which is proving an interesting read. Perelman contends: "[M]ost people in Britain did not enthusiastically engage in wage labor -- at least so long as they had an alternative. To make sure that people accepted wage labor, the classical political economists actively advocated measures to deprive people of their traditional means of support..." So much for laissez-faire... And it's interesting to note that the inherently racist "lazy native" construct of colonial discourse has clear antecedents in the inherently classist "lazy peasant" construct of the advocates of classical political economy.)



But I digress...

Derbyshire is rewarding on so many levels. I look forward to further acquaintance.