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Where is Derbyshire?
The county of Derbyshire is in the East Midlands of England, being bounded by Yorkshire to the north, Nottinghamshire to the east, Leicestershire, Warwickshire and Staffordshire to the south, and both Staffordshire and Cheshire on the west.
Derbyshire formed part of the original kingdom of Mercia, and in the 9th century the Danes settled in the area and founded the borough of Derby. Lead was first mined in the Peak District by the Romans, and came into prominence again during the Middle Ages. The 17th and 18th centuries saw iron ore being extracted in the eastern part of the county. Silk mills were established in Derby in the early 1700’s, and the cotton mills by the river Derwent at Cromford, near Matlock, were the first mills to use water-powered machinery in 1771. This source of power made many of the Derbyshire valleys suitable sites for textile mills in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Iron foundries were opened in the east, and coal mines in eastern and southern areas round about the same time.
In the present century the city of Derby developed as an engineering centre, and Rolls Royce Ltd., (founded in 1906) opened its first factory there. Most of the industries that came to the fore in the 17th and 18th centuries have closed in recent years, and only a few coal mines are still being worked. Alfreton, Bolsover, Chesterfield and Ilkeston are now major industrial centres, with Matlock, Bakewell and Buxton (once a Roman spa town: Aquae Arnemetiae) in the north west catering for tourism. Limestone quarrying still takes place in the Wirksworth and Buxton areas.
The administrative reorganisation in 1974, which saw major changes in the boundaries of some counties, had little effect on Derbyshire. The main change in Derbyshire was a boundary adjustment when the rural district of Tintwistle was moved from Cheshire’s administration to that of Derbyshire. The “Derbyshire County Council” has its main administrative offices in Matlock.
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