Villages

The decision so far for a new monthly series has been fairly straightforward between the heritage of Derby or a town walk through either Long Eaton or Belper. Now the choice becomes much more difficult with the inclusion of a number of village trails. A village to quote Wikipedia is a "human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet, but smaller than a town or city."


There are already a number of Village Trails on the Ilkeston Cam site and several of them are based on a series of leaflets produced a number of years ago with funds from the Groundwork Environmental Fund supported by the Department of the Environment. Villages in this series that I have not yet covered include Little Eaton (above), Morley (left) and Draycott and Wilne.

Also to be thrown into the mix are Milford (near Belper); Darley Village just to the north of Derby and in the Derwent Valley Heritage Corridor; a cluster of villages to the north of Ilkeston with a rich industrial heritage centred on Riddings (right), Ironville and Jacksdale to say nothing of Shardlow and Breadsall in the opposite direction.

Cities, towns or villages and that's not the end of it - there's more to come.

I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance that I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn. - Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862)