I am a native of Derby, and my roots in this city run deep. I take immense pride in my origins and recognise the privilege of belonging to such a stunning corner of the world. I do not take this privilege lightly, and it saddens me that many in my generation do. Derbyshire, the county I call home, boasts an abundance of breath taking landscapes and a wealth of historical sites. Regrettably, these gems often go unnoticed and unappreciated. This very neglect and oversight have been the driving force behind the creation of this blog.
The area that is now Derbyshire was first visited by humans 200,000 years ago during the Aveley interglacial, as shown by a Middle Palaeolithic Acheulean hand axe found near Hopton.
The Hopton Hand Axe – an ovate style handaxe thought to be up to 350,000 years old
Further occupation came with the Upper Palaeolithic and Neolithic periods of the Stone Age when Mesolithic hunter-gatherers roamed the hilly tundra. Evidence of these nomadic tribes has been found in limestone caves located on the border with Nottinghamshire. Deposits left in the caves date the occupancy at around 12,000 to 7,000 BCE.
Burial mounds of Neolithic settlers are also situated throughout the county. These chambered tombs were designed for collective burial and are mostly located in the central Derbyshire region. There are also tombs at Minninglow and Five Wells that date back to between 2000 and 2500 BCE. Three miles west of Youlgreave lies the Neolithic henge monument of Arbor Low, which has been dated to 2500 BCE.
It is not until the Bronze Age that real signs of agriculture and settlement are found in the county. In the moors of the Peak District signs of clearance, arable fields and hut circles were found after archaeological investigation. However, this area and another settlement at Swarkestone are all that have been found.
The henge monument at Arbor Low
Five Wells is a Neolithic chambered tomb between the villages of Chelmorton and Taddington on Taddington Moor in the Derbyshire Peak District.
While the transition from the Early Neolithic to the Late Neolithic in the fourth and third millennia BCE saw much economic and technological continuity, there was a considerable change in the style of monuments erected, particularly in what is now southern and eastern England. By 3000 BCE, the long barrows, causewayed enclosures, and cursuses that had predominated in the Early Neolithic were no longer built and had been replaced by circular monuments of various kinds. These include earthen henges, timber circles, and stone circles. Stone circles exist in most areas of Britain where stone is available, with the exception of the island's south-eastern corner. They are most densely concentrated in south-western Britain and on the north-eastern horn of Scotland, near Aberdeen. The tradition of their construction may have lasted 2,400 years, from 3300 to 900 BCE, the major phase of building taking place between 3000 and 1300 BCE.
These stone circles typically show very little evidence of human visitation during the period immediately following their creation. The historian Ronald Hutton noted that this suggests that they were not sites used for rituals that left archaeologically visible evidence, but may have been deliberately left as "silent and empty monuments". The archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson argues that in Neolithic Britain, stone was associated with the dead, and wood with the living. Other archaeologists have proposed that the stone might not represent ancestors, but rather other supernatural entities, such as deities.
Across eastern Britain—including the East Midlands—stone circles are far less common than in the west of the island, possibly due to the general scarcity of naturally occurring stone here. There is much evidence for timber circles and earthen henges in the east, suggesting that these might have been more common than their stone counterparts. In the area of modern Derbyshire, there are five or six known stone circles although the remains of many ring-cairns, a different style of prehistoric monument, are also common and can look much like the stone rings. Stylistically, those found in this county are similar to those found in Yorkshire. Within the Peak District, nine was frequently favoured as the number of stones used in a circle. The only large stone circles in the Peak are Arbor Low and The Bull Ring, both monuments which combine a stone circle with an earthen henge and which are located on the sandstone layers. There are also a few smaller stone circles, such as Doll Tor and the Nine Stones Close, that are close to the limestone edge.
Doll Tor, Stone Circle, Derbyshire.
Sometimes referred to as Six Stones this small stone circle is near the village of Birchover, west of Stanton Moor. Dating from the Bronze Age, the circle consists of six standing stones. The site was excavated in 1852 by Thomas Bateman, and again from 1931 to 1933 by J. P. Heathcote. During this second excavation, three stones were smashed and later repaired with cement. In 1993, unknown visitors rearranged the stones to create a more complete but historically inaccurate circle. It was later restored by English Heritage and Peak District National Park Authority to something close to its original Bronze Age appearance. Doll Tor stone circle is a Scheduled Ancient Monument.
Nine Ladies, Stone Circle, Stanton Moor, Derbyshire.
Despite the name, there are 10 stones within the circle, the tenth (which has fallen and now lies flat) having been located in 1977. The stones are set on the inner edge of a slight bank, and form a ring which measures 11.5 x 10.5 metres (38 x 34 feet). The monument was first recorded by Major Hayman Rooke in 1782. He noted that there appeared to be stones in the centre of the ring, which may have formed a small cairn or ‘cist’.
The names of the monuments derive from their associations with folk traditions, in which it is said that nine women were dancing on the Sabbath to a fiddler – the King Stone – and were turned to stone. The graffiti carved on the King Stone, which includes the name ‘Bill Stumps’, is also mentioned in The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens.
Barbrook II Stone Circle, Derbyshire.
Barbrook Stone Circle I, Derbyshire.
Nine Stones Close, also known as the Grey Ladies, Youlgrave, Derbyshire
The image of the Nine Stones Close monument reveals the presence of the remaining four stones. This location is also commonly referred to as the Grey Ladies. In 1947, Heathcote proposed the idea that this was not a product of folklore originating within the local community's oral tradition but, instead, had been fabricated by "early guidebook authors."
The question of whether there were originally nine stones is shrouded in uncertainty. One hypothesis suggests that 'nine' may have evolved from 'noon,' a time when, as per local folklore, fairies would supposedly congregate at the site for their enchanting dances.
Hordron Edge, Derbyshire.
The Seven Stones of Hordron, can be found in the Hope Valley
close to the village of Bamford and Ladybower Reservoir. Sitting on the shelf
of land known as Moscar Moor with Stanage Edge to the east, the carved
rock of Ladybower Tor to the west and the stone circle and cairns of Bamford
Moor a mile to the south. Although it is also known as the 'Seven Stones
of Hordron' there are in fact 11 stones here plus another three that were
discovered below the peat during investigations in 1992 - gaps between the
stones would suggest that there were originally several more. Unlike many
Derbyshire circles the stones are not set into a bank but instead form a
freestanding ring of between 15-16 metres with heights ranging from about half
a metre to the largest one-metre-tall stone to the southwest. This stone (known
as the Fairy Stone) could provide an intriguing insight into the Bronze Age
builders world view. The top of the stone bears a curious similarity in shape
and angle to two distant hills also to the southwest - Win Hill two miles away
and Lose Hill, four miles away. This apparent mirroring of distant landscape
features by a prominent circle stone is also seen at Wet Withens a few miles to
the south where the hill mirrored is Higger Tor (over which the midsummer sun
is seen to rise).
There was also an incredible find in Robin Hood’s Cave,
Creswell Crags, Derbyshire. The Robin Hood Cave Horse (previously known as
the Ochre Horse) is a fragment of rib engraved with a horse's head,
discovered in 1876, in the Robin Hood Cave in Creswell Crags, Derbyshire. It is
the only piece of Upper Paleolithic portable art showing an animal to have been
found in Britain. It is now in the British Museum, but normally not on display.
Between 7 February and 26 May 2013 it was displayed in the exhibition at the
British Museum Ice Age Art: Arrival of the Modern Mind. A replica of the
artifact is displayed at the Creswell Crags Museum.
Engraving of a horse's head on fragment of rib, created at least 12,500 years ago.
Creswell Crags, Derbyshire
Derbyshire’s geological record goes back way beyond 200,000 years. In the year 2021, Dovedale in Derbyshire was recognised as a natural wonder. The limestone rock of Dovedale consists of the fossilised remains of marine life from the Carboniferous period, 350 million years ago when the area was underneath a shallow tropical sea. At the end of the Ice Age, vast quantities of meltwater cut through the layers of limestone leaving behind the limestone rock formations like those found in Dovedale.
The water at this spot is ankle-deep and those naturally formed stepping stones have been trampled barefoot by just about every child from Derbyshire, who visited on a school trip.
From sculpted limestone valleys to towering mountains that overlook Ice Age landscapes, to sea stacks, cascading waterfalls, and cliffs that preserve the remains of dinosaurs – if you believed Derbyshire's geology to be uninteresting, think again.
With a rich history spanning 350 million years, one might wonder where to commence. There exists a substantial amount of history that remains undocumented, and I might have inadvertently overlooked some of it to ensure that this blog doesn't take you 350 million years to read! Certain settlements were historically part of Derbyshire but now find themselves in different counties, including:
Marple Bridge, now situated in Cheshire/Greater Manchester.
Measham, presently part of Leicestershire.
Mosborough, Totley, and Dore, now falling within Yorkshire.
Burton-upon-Trent, which is currently in Staffordshire.
This is why I opted to embark on my blogs journey in Derby during the era of the Roman settlers. While the blog primarily unfolds in Derby, I will incorporate other regions of the county and beyond when it harmonises with the narrative.
The Roman invasion of Britain arguably stands as the most momentous event in the history of the British Isles. It left an indelible mark on our language, culture, geography, architecture, and even our way of thinking. Our island bears a Roman name, its capital is a Roman city, and for centuries (even following the Norman Conquest), the language of our religion and administration remained distinctly Roman.
