Monday, 15th May, 2023

47 High St, Teversham, with our hire car in front

We drove to Derby, the next cathedral. It was a recent as 1927 when the parish church became "The Cathedral Church of All Saints', Derby, when the diocese of Derby was created. The church was founded in the mid 10th century but most of the current building dates to a rebuild in 1725. There are only two stained-glass windows, both modern.

Looking from the back of the cathedral towards the sanctuary

The All Saints and All Souls windows were installed in 1964.

The view from the sanctuary towards the back of the church

The cathedral houses no less than four organs, this one, a four-manual Compton built in 1939 (which is not working very well), a smaller 2 manual Cousans organ (from the 1960s which is currently out of action), a 4 stop chamber organ by Robin Jennings and a Viscount electronic organ which has been hired. We heard the Viscount this evening. It's sound is obviously eletronic but it doesn't do too bad a job.

A very nice lectern!

A close up!

The smaller pipe organ, and the "old" choir stalls are located beyond the High Altar.

The console of the viscount organ

Flowers in the cathedral garden

After lunch at Subway, we decided to head to the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site. The website was not very helpful in terms of opening times (or even days) so we were not quite sure what to expect. We came to a large derelict-looking building with a sign saying "East Mill". A sign pointed to "Visitors Centre" so we walked in the direction the sign suggested. We found that it had closed (perhaps before living memory judging by the state it was in!). On the other side of the mill building, we found the Belper River Gardens which were quite pleasant.

A ride on one of these paddle boats would have been fun but they were not in use.

Strutt's East Mill

We learned that the World Heritage Site is spread over 15 miles of the Derwent River. We headed for Matlock, thew town at the far end. On the way. we saw the "Heights of Abraham" cable car so we decided to have a ride on that. As we arrived too late to do most of the tours available at the top of the cable car rise, we had to pay "only" £15 instead of the £26.90 required if we had arrived earlier. We enjoyed an ice cream and a wander around the grounds.

The Victoria Prospect Tower was completed in |844 to take advantage of the panoramic views and provide a 'viewing station' for Victorian visitors.The construction of the tower helped provide work for unemployed miners when lead mining was in decline. It now stands as an icon to tourism as the hillside changed from a site of industrial activity to one developed as a popular 'pleasure garden' for visitors to enjoy. Local stone is used in its construction, which stands 244 metres above sea level. It is 12.2 metres high and has 54 steps.

The panoramic views were wonderful!

Willersley Castle was built in 1792 as a private home. It has been a Methodist Holiday Home and a hotel. Apparently it is now being converted into apartments.

We hurried back to the cathedral for Evensong at 5:15pm, arriving a couple of minutes late. It was then that I found that I had misread the website and the service didn't actually start until 5:30pm so that was good. We heard the girls of the choir sing the Responses by Jeremy Woodside. The canticles were the "Evening Service in F minor" by Hugh Morris and the anthem was "Give Us the Wings of Faith" by Mark Blatchly. The music was good but not excellent.

From the cathedral, we made our way to our accommodation, The King's highway Inn. We found that there was a carvery dinner on offer so we went there.

We didn't have the dessert because we had to leave the room for that. I have never had to leave the room for dessert before (but I have had to leave the room without dessert on occasions!).