The Ladybird Guide to Derbyshire: Winter
As a schoolchild, one of us experienced mixed emotions on receiving good marks for a composition required to demonstrate clichés! On conceiving the idea for this blog, therefore, imagine the discomfort when the first title which floated into mind was, “A Derbyshire Christmas”! How many nostalgic, rose tinted essays have been written under such a title, probably aimed at magazines such as ‘This England’ (“a large readership among expatriates”) or ‘The Countryman’ (which, latterly “tended to favour the views of urban-dwellers” and is now defunct). Both were beloved of my urban grandmother. [Both quotes come from Wikipedia].
The format which most of us recognise today, however, (image above right) was first published during the Second World War. Paper rationing had become an issue, but a 56 page book of around 7” x 4 5/8” could be printed on a single sheet of paper measuring 40” x 30”. This poster sized sheet was called a Quad Crown.
Opposite every sheet of text is a full page illustration. Clear, colourful and very competent, each picture tells a story with clarity and simplicity and created artwork which is still enjoyed today.
Nostalgic? Of course, but with artists including C.F. Tunnicliffe, Rowland Hilder and Allen Seaby, we would suggest that interest is not purely driven by the Boomers who grew up with them. One Instagram account, devoted to the books and their artists, has 28,000 followers. This seems like a biggish number to Terroir.
We spent Christmas in the Derbyshire village of Hathersage. The winter sunshine and shadows sharply defined key elements in the views, such as buildings and larger landforms, and resulted in panoramas which reminded us of nothing so much as a Ladybird Book illustration. Even the cement works in the background (image above) looked like a simplified, toy walkie-talkie.
We won’t attempt the writing style but we will try to keep what follows simple and very visual in the best tradition of a Ladybird guide to ‘A history of Hathersage’ and ‘Christmas in Derbyshire’.
The Normans also seem to have built the mysterious Camp Green, a ‘Norman ring-motte’ with massive walls which now shelter a much more modern house. https://her.derbyshire.gov.uk/Monument/MDR4217
The first mention of a church dates to 1130, the list of parish priest starts at 1281 and 1381 saw the construction of a new church which, after much modification, grew to be the building we see today.
For many centuries, Hathersage remained an agricultural community, gathered around the church with a pub (the Bell Inn) and a small village green.
Image right: Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland
Inevitably, the industrial revolution reached Hathersage in the mid 18th century. Quarrying and the making of millstones was very much based on local resources but the proximity of the village to Sheffield and its steel works encouraged one William Cocker to set up a wire pulling business. ‘Wire pulling’ it seems is a metalworking process to reduce the thickness of a wire by pulling it through a die which forms the wire to the required cross-section. Things went well and Cocker built a new works at the bottom of the hill, below the village, close to the confluence of the Hood and Dale Brooks and a convenient public house, which had been built sometime around 1560. Slowly the village extended down the hill as other wire and needle making works joined in. The Hope Valley railway branch line arrived in 1894.
You could say that tourism in Hathersage started in 1845 when Charlotte Brontë visited the village to stay with a friend (sister to the then vicar). When Charlotte returned home she penned ‘Jane Eyre’, a novel full of Hathersage influences, ranging from names to buildings, landscapes, interiors and dramatic settings.
But despite its new economic basis, its railway station, petrol station and two convenience stores, Hathersage appears to retain a strong Derbyshire community spirit.
So let’s get back to some real Ladybird Book style adventure stuff. We were told that Hathersage was a interesting place in which to spend Christmas. It is.
Hathersage is also good on crib scenes. Yes, there was one in the church, of course, but again Christmas in Hathersage is an outdoor thing with this full sized affair (below), opposite the George Hotel. Baby Jesus arrived a tiny bit early to coincide with a brass band and more carol singing.
Our final Christmas ‘Show and Tell’ (well more ‘show’ than ‘tell’ I’m afraid) was something we had never seen before: a village Advent Calendar. It makes an evening ramble around the village streets a real community light show. We just don’t know how you get to open the windows!
We are obliged to three organisations for helping us to tell this Ladybird story of Hathersage. In no particular order, these are:
The Museum of English Rural Life at Reading University who hold the Ladybird Book Archive
The Hathersage Parish Church of St Michael and All Angels for the book entitled ‘A Guide and Brief History’ (and yes we did pay for it!) and
The Millstone Country Inn for our first live introduction to the carols, hymns and songs sung in and around the village of Hathersage.
A happy New Year to you all.