Alistair Plant

Lost Houses

The Lost Houses of Derbyshire – Blackwall Hall

September 26, 2023 Alistair Plant 1

When one speaks of houses that are lost, one speaks of houses built, lived in and eventually discarded as redundant, too expensive, too damaged or too inconvenient to continue living in. With regard to the potentially spectacular house that Bess of Hardwick no less, built or intended to build at Blackwall-in-Peak, none of the above […]

Walks

Walk Derbyshire – Along Lover’s Walk – Ilam

August 30, 2023 Alistair Plant 0

The popular village and National Trust property of Ilam and its hall, are based on a Saxon settlement, later expanded in Victorian times. In its early days it was where the early Celtic Christian missionary St Bertram baptised his flock, using a well on the slopes of Bunster Hill to the north of the village […]

Dining Out

Dining Out – Meynell Langley Gardens & Tea Rooms

August 30, 2023 Alistair Plant 0

Which ever way your journey takes you, the approach to Meynell Langley Nursery is through the most pleasant, verdant, typically English countryside that you could wish for. Meandering down twisting country lanes you could imagine yourself back in the days of the grand country house, where kitchens were supplied with produce, lovingly cultivated in the […]

Dining Out

Dining Out – The Machine Inn, Ashbourne

August 30, 2023 Alistair Plant 0

You may, like me, wonder what the Machine Inn in Ashbourne and a corset have in common, and your interest may be further piqued when you see the simple line drawing that identifies one of Ashbourne’s newest restaurant and boutique hotels. But looking into the history all becomes clear as for 125 years Ashbourne was […]

Mark Thomas 4 – PLEASE CREDIT Tony Pletts

Celebrity Interviews

Celebrity Interview – Mark Thomas

August 30, 2023 Alistair Plant 0

Mark Thomas is exhausted – he uses a more colloquial term – yet exhilarated. The comedian, writer, presenter, journalist and activist has just completed another one-man show at the Edinburgh Fringe, “the world’s largest performance arts festival”, that he’s been attending for the past 41 years. An hour later he’s telling me why for the […]

Featured

Celebrity Interview – Neil Smith

July 25, 2023 Alistair Plant 0

Co-Founder of the International Gilbert & Sullivan Festival Thirty years after the festival was first staged at Buxton Opera House it’s back at the Derbyshire town in its entirety, with professional productions, a competition for amateurs and performances by mature performers as well as youth groups. The International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival was founded in […]

Lost Houses

Lost Houses of Derbyshire – Morley Old Hall

July 25, 2023 Alistair Plant 0

For somewhere so close to Derby, and somewhere which was once on the very edge of a coal-mining area, Morley is today a remarkably sequestered spot. The village is discrete, as the archaeologists say – not nucleated, but scattered around its parish – but with a magnificent parish church, a very grand Georgian rectory and […]

Dining Out

Dining in Derbyshire – Taj, Alfreton

July 25, 2023 Alistair Plant 0

The newly opened Taj Indian Restaurant on King Street, Alfreton provided us with the opportunity to meet and share a unique dining experience, I’ll explain… Owner Vir Chijar is an experienced pizza chef of many years! That’s a twist we weren’t expecting and that’s not all as he has a vast experience in the food […]

Walks

Walk Derbyshire Cromford Meadows & Black Rocks

July 25, 2023 Alistair Plant 0

Cromford owes its birth to Richard Arkwright, founder of the water-driven cotton spinning frame, one of the leading inventions of the Industrial Revolution. Harassed by home-based cotton spinners and weavers in his native Lancashire, in 1771 he opened his first mill, using the convenient power of the nearby River Derwent, close to the Crom Ford, […]