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 – The Machine Inn, Ashbourne
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 […]
Celebrity Interview – Mark Thomas
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 […]
Celebrity Interview – Neil Smith
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 of Derbyshire – Morley Old Hall
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 in Derbyshire – Taj, Alfreton
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 […]
Walk Derbyshire Cromford Meadows & Black Rocks
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, […]
Win A Family ticket to Maze 52!
Dining In Derbyshire – Darley’s
Darley Abbey is a mill village just over a mile from the centre of Derby, on the bank of the river Derwent. On the other bank sits an area of historic, industrial heritage now part of the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage site. Approached from Alfreton Road, you turn along Haslams Lane and pass the Derby […]
Dining In Derbyshire – Seafood Cave & Grill, Matlock
It felt a little surreal as Susan and I drove into Matlock Bath, late on a sunny, mid-week afternoon. Most of the traffic was heading in the opposite direction; office workers in a rush to get home. We weren’t in a hurry and our route wasn’t busy. It felt like one of those summer evenings, […]