The Little History of Derbyshire – a talk.
Reply
Tag Archives: The Little History of Derbyshire
Little History of Derbyshire – in the window!
Well this is very exciting – I’m in the window of Waterstones in Derby! The History Press publication The Little History of Derbyshire is in the window…yes I did a little dance of happiness and have been photographed standing next to it.
Someone asked me how much I enjoyed writing it – and the answer is that I absolutely loved it the research process. I guess one of the things we’re all slightly guilty of is not visiting places on our own doorsteps, so it was a real pleasure to revisit locations I hadn’t been to for years and others that I’d never seen. I also became fascinated by the importance of geology and the development of infrastructure which impact on the prosperity of different locations as well as their evolution as settlements. Derbyshire is quite unusual in that there was no dominant noble family for many centuries after the de Ferrers earls of Derby blotted their copy books and Henry III ordered that Duffield Castle should be demolished, thus removing the county’s largest and most significant keep. Instead, more middling families assumed roles and responsibilities within the county working for the Dukes of Lancaster and, in due course, Lancastrian monarchs. By the fifteenth century Derbyshire’s gentry, of which there were about 30 families, were both prosperous and influential.
And the other thing I really enjoyed was turning my hand to some pen and ink drawings to illustrate the book. This pair didn’t make it into the book. It’s a quick sketch of the Thomas Cokayne and his wife Dorothy in St Oswald’s Church, Ashbourne. The Cokaynes were one of the gentry families who played a significant role in Medieval Derbyshire. Thomas was in the household of the 5th Earl of Shrewsbury, he took part in Henry VIII’s Rough Wooing in 1544 and was knighted by Edward Seymour for his part in it – notably the burning of Edinburgh. In 1587, he was one of the gentleman warders of Mary Queen of Scots on the orders of the 6th Earl of Shrewsbury. The following year, again on the orders of Shrewsbury, he joined other members of the Derbyshire gentry, as justices of the peace, recruiting men and arming them in preparation for the Spanish Armada.
The Little History of Derbyshire
I can’t say how much I enjoyed the research and writing this book, especially as I was permitted to include some of my own pen and ink drawings. Please share with any one who you think might be interested. And follow the link below to a blog post that I have written for the History Press. If you’d like to buy the book click on the image.
Not a guest post this Monday – The Little History of Derbyshire
When I began university, I was told that by the time I finished I would be able to unwrap layers of history in the landscape where I lived, rather like an onion. I’m not so sure about the onion simile and the word palimpsest doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.
A palimpsest was originally a term used to described text written over an older layer of writing at a time when parchment was expensive. One layer is scraped off and another applied.
The truth of the matter is that in Derbyshire, and all the counties I’ve ever lived, elements of the past sit alongside the present, intertwining with one another like different fabrics in a patchwork quilt. Each one adds a new layer of meaning and in Derbyshire, it begins with geology. The landscape has shaped the people who lived here just as much as they shaped it.
One of my favourite links between landscape and the people who lived in Derbyshire is T’Owd Man of Wirksworth. He’s a small carved figure of a miner with a pick and workman’s basket, or kibble, dating from the Saxon period. He can be found on one of the stones in the south transept of St Mary’s Church.
Not that he began life in Wirksworth – The old man, or ‘T’Owd Man’ as the carving is known, was found during the restoration of the largely fourteenth century St James’ Church in the nearby village of Bonsall. T’Owd Man is thought to have originated from an earlier church and was reused as part of the foundations of the medieval building.  From Bonsall he found his way to the garden of the local churchwarden, John Broxup Coates. At some time between 1870 and 1874 T’Owd Man was rescued from his role as a garden ornament and incorporated into the walls of St Mary’s which was undergoing its own restoration.
The carving is thought to be Britain’s earliest representation of a miner – which is a seriously cool claim.
The Little History of Derbyshire will be available at the end of May.
https://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/publication/the-little-history-of-derbyshire/9781803994154/
