Derbyshire Places (1) : Duffield

Duffield is a village in South Derbyshire in the Amber Valley. People have lived in the area since at least 400BCE. The Romans also had a settlement in the area dating from the first century CE. A Saxon settlement is listed in the Domesday Book as Duvelle.

In Norman times the area held the hunting grounds of Duffield Frith owned by one of William the Conqueror's knights Henry de Ferrers. He built Duffield Castle to protect the Northern outpost of his lands. Not a huge deal of the castle survives apart from the foundations and outlines of some of the buildings.

The parish church of Duffield is St Alkmund's. It is located to the South of the village and may have been on the route of travellers between Nottingham and Ashbourne where they needed to cross the river.

The major industry of Duffield for most of it's existence was agriculture though there were some ironstone mines too. The railway reached Duffield in 1840 and Duffield became a junction of, what became, the Midland Main Line and the line to Wirksworth. The latter was closed in 1981 but was re-opened as the Ecclesbourne Valley heritage railway in 2002. Duffield railway station serves both mainline and EVR.

Highley Engine House

Although I attended the Severn Valley Railway last Friday for a diesel gala I also took the opportunity to visit the Engine House in Highley where the SVR stores it's spare steam locomotives which await recommissioning (though some have been waiting a long time). You can see my photos from the Engine House here.

Postcards from the past

This afternoon I went to a talk held by Tom Jackson, the guy behind the Postcards from the past twitter account, podcast and book (which I have got). The twitter account presents old postcards along with a sentence or two of the message written on the card.

The messages, out of any context, are often funny, surreal, poignant or all of these at the same time. There are some fascinating aspects of social history revealed though these messages often you'd love to know more about the people involved especially in cases like the message below. Quite how did Mum get stuck in the toilet and what was so great about it?!

Upper Arley

One place I have wanted to visit for some time is the village of Upper Arley which is just over the river Severn from Arley station on the Severn Valley Railway. I took advantage of the much higher frequency of trains on a gala day to also pop over to the village and take some photos. A rather lovely village and church. You can see my photos here.

SVR Autumn Diesel Gala

I headed up to the Severn Valley Railway yesterday for it's (inaugural I think) Autumn Diesel Gala. Not much in terms of guest traction this time but that was fine as their home fleet is large and varied. I just wanted to do some travelling about behind heritage traction. I visited Highley and Arley (of which more in future posts) as well as Kidderminster. You can see my gala photos here.