Review of ‘Derbyshire in Old Photographs’, by Elizabeth Mottram and Alistair Lofthouse

This review is by Julie Bunting, and was published originally in The Peak Advertiser, the Peak District's local free newspaper, on 11th March 2002, and is reproduced with Julie's kind permission.

DERBYSHIRE IN OLD PHOTOGRAPHS by Elizabeth Mottram and Alistair Lofthouse ISBN 1-90158716-9 (2002) The title of this nostalgic photograph album doesn't quite tell the full story; it is in fact a collection of rare pictures from all around the Peak. The photographs are taken from a larger collection gathered over a lifetime by a Sheffield-based collector. It would be impossible to select one section for particular praise - they appear under headings such as Towns and Villages of the Peak, Transport and Rural Life.

Some of the photographs take us back longer than any of us have been alive. Here are the 1896 inhabitants of Eyam standing in front of poor-looking cottages with smoking chimneys, children safely playing in the middle of dusty village roads - no cars, no road markings nor even tarmac - thatched cottages, and old pubs with their old names before they were gentrified. Turn over a few more pages and there is a train steaming over the Monsal Dale viaduct, or stage coaches and charabancs full of excursionists.

In all, the book contains 70 larger-than-postcard sized photographs with well-researched supporting text.

Review by Julie Bunting