Little Chester

Derventio was a small town in the Roman province of Britannia. Today the area is known as Little Chester, on the outskirts of Derby, located in the English county of Derbyshire.

Landau Forte College Derby is an academy in Derby, England. As a secondary school and sixth form, it serves students aged 11–19 from the City of Derby and surrounding areas.

Handyside Bridge, also known as Derwent Bridge, is a former railway bridge in Darley Abbey, Derbyshire, England which was converted to a foot bridge in 1976 following closure of the railway in 1968. Named for its builders, Andrew Handyside & Co., it is a tied-arch bridge constructed from riveted wrought iron and is situated at the entrance to Darley Park in Derby. It spans the River Derwent and was part of the Great Northern Railway Derbyshire Extension popularly known as the (Derby) Friargate Line. The next station to the south was Friargate which has another bridge built by Andrew Handyside.

St Mary's Bridge Chapel is a Church of England chapel in Derby, England. It is a bridge chapel, one of only a small number of medieval age that survive in England. It is a Grade I listed building. The Chapel of St Mary on the Bridge, commonly known as the Bridge Chapel, was built on the first arch of a medieval bridge over the River Derwent; the springing of the arch can be seen below the east wall. It now stands beside the 18th-century St Mary's Bridge, which replaced the medieval bridge. The precise date when the first bridge chapel came into existence is uncertain, but it is likely to have been the late 13th or early 14th century. The south elevation has a timber-framed gable over a 15th-century stone-mullioned window with modern leaded lights. The original building was of stone, but some restoration is in brick with tile slips. The interior is small and aisleless. The north wall has a lychnoscope. It is one of only six bridge chapels left in England. The building has had other uses including as a prison and a carpenter's workshop. It was restored in 1930 in memory of Alfred Seale Haslam, a former Mayor of Derby, using funds from his family. An incised slate tablet on the north side records the names of three Catholic priests, Nicholas Garlick, Robert Ludlum and Richard Simpson, who on 24 July 1588 were martyred near here. Although it remains in Anglican ownership, the building is also used for worship by Lutheran (Latvian and German-speaking) and Russian Orthodox congregations.The adjacent St Mary's Bridge (1788–93, designed by Thomas Harrison) is a Grade II* listed structure and scheduled monument, and Bridge Chapel House (or St Mary's Bridge House, No. 86, Bridge Gate) is listed at Grade II.

Bath Street Mill was a silk throwing mill in Derby, built in 1851 for George Holme. In spite of the recession in the silk industry in 1857, he expanded the mill in 1868. In 2008 plans were made to convert the mill into flats and offices, but the building was damaged beyond repair by a fire in June 2009, and later demolished.

Derby Rowing Club is a rowing club on the River Derwent, based at Darley Grove, Darley Abbey, Derby, Derbyshire.

Derby Silk Mill, formerly known as Derby Industrial Museum, is a museum of industry and history in Derby, England. The museum is located on the former site of Lombe's Mill, a historic silk mill which marks the southern end of the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site. The site opened as Derby’s Industrial Museum, on 29 November 1974. A £17 million redevelopment scheme started in 2016, and the museum reopened under the new name of the Museum of Making on 21 May 2021.

Lombe's Mill was the first successful silk throwing mill in Britain. It was built on an island on the River Derwent in Derby. It was built after John Lombe visited Piedmont in 1717 and returned to England with details of the Italian silk throwing machines – the filatoio and the torcitoio – and some Italian craftsmen. The architect was George Sorocold. At its height, the mill employed some 300 people.

Derby Nottingham Road railway station was a railway station about half a mile north of Derby station on the Midland Railway line from Derby to Leeds and the line from Derby to Ripley in England (see timetable below). One effect of the railways was that racing became a national sport with owners being able to transport their horses over much larger distances. Most racecourses had a nearby railway station with suitable facilities. Derby Racecourse opened in 1848 right next to the Midland line beside the Nottingham Road. It is now the County Cricket Ground. The station opened in 1856, with several improvements over its first decade, being extended three times in 1860, 1867 and 1868. A siding was built along with improved facilities for the horses. It had platforms on either side of the two passenger lines, the goods lines passing to the east. On 9 November 1870 there was an accident at the station which resulted in 29 casualties. During the earlier part of the day there had been a collision between luggage trains slightly further north near the Little Eaton junction which resulted in a derailment which delayed the train from Manchester to London by several hours. In the afternoon a heavy fog set in which added to the delay. A slow train from Derby to Manchester, due at 6.50pm left just after 7.00pm and passed the City Road junction at Little Chester. It was then delayed by a few minutes because of luggage trucks on the up line ahead. When these trucks were moved, the Derby to Manchester train started up again, but shortly afterwards the Derby to Ripley train scheduled to leave Derby at 7.00pm ran into in behind with considerable force. The guard's brake of the Manchester train was smashed. Several passengers jumped from each train and proceeded back to Derby on foot. The Midland Railway had installed the block signalling system between Manchester and Derby but not between Derby and Ripley.On 18 June 1875 the left luggage office was broken into by Thomas Harris who abstracted a quantity of items. He was spotted by a Police Constable Madeley on Chaddesden Road who followed him and when he eventually caught up with him, discovered he had changed his clothes. The items were later identified as those stolen from the station and Thomas Harris was sent to prison for six months.The station saw two fatalities in quick succession. On 15 December 1880, Frederick Holt was struck by a train whilst he was on the line. On 5 January 1881 Joseph Jolly, an employee of the Hide and Skin Company was standing on the tracks between the platforms when he was struck and killed by the Manchester to Derby express.King Edward VII used the station when he arrived in the Royal Train from St Pancras at Derby on Friday 28 June 1906 to unveil a statue to Queen Victoria. He was welcomed at the station by the Lord Lieutenant of Derbyshire, Spencer Cavendish, 8th Duke of Devonshire, The station was specially decorated for the occasion with an awning under which the company officials welcomed the King, and the palings on the approach to the station were draped with red, white and blue awnings. It also served the local trains to Ambergate closing in 1967.Derby Racecourse was doubly blessed, for the Great Northern Railway also provided a station to the north of the course on its line into Derby Friargate, which is also now closed. The approach road and station area are now used for parking and storage by a local builder's merchant.

Derby power station supplied electricity to the town of Derby and the surrounding area from 1893 to 1969. The power station was built and operated by Derby Corporation and started generating electricity in October 1893. It was located in Silkmill Lane in the town centre adjacent to the River Derwent from which it drew its cooling water. The power station was extended in the 1920s and 1940s. It was closed in 1969 and was subsequently demolished.

The Cathedral Green Footbridge is a pedestrian and cycle swing bridge in the centre of Derby, spanning the River Derwent. It forms a third side to a triangle between The Cathedral and the Silk Mill Museum. The bridge and adjacent re-landscaped Cathedral Green opened in March 2009 at a cost of £4.2m and is located in an area of World Heritage status. It links the Cathedral Green to Stuart Street and has been designed to swing to one side when water levels are high. It weighs 95 tonnes, with a box steel section deck, supported by three cables, keeping the overall structural slender. The bridge swings on a pintle bearing, with a central wheel to support its weight.Construction began in August 2007 and the Bridge opened to the public on 20 March 2009, then was officially opened on 2 April 2009, a year behind schedule, by the Mayor of Derby. The bridge, designed by Ramboll, was partly inspired by tailor's shears and has an iconic needle-shaped mast, to echo the heritage of the nearby Silk Mill. The silk theme of the needle is complemented by the nearby Saint Alkmunds Way Footbridge which includes silk bobbins as its design feature.The Cathedral Green has landscaped gardens with a tiled pavement incorporating lighting effects, called The Mill Flume, designed by Nayan Kulkarni, representing the path the river took when it powered the waterwheel of the Silk Mill. There is a statue of Bonnie Prince Charlie, as he was billeted near the site of the bridge during the Jacobite rising in December 1745. The bridge was a finalist in the Prime Minister's Award for better public buildings following its completion in 2009. The judges said they were impressed by the design allowing the bridge to be turned with only a small amount of energy. The bridge, with its 38 degree kink, is supported on the central wheel with a wheel system being used on the counterweighted section.

Exeter House was an early 17th-century brick-built mansion, which stood in Full Street, Derby until 1854. Named for the Earls of Exeter, whose family owned the property until 1757, the house was notable for the stay of Charles Edward Stuart during the Jacobite rising of 1745. Exeter House was replaced by offices, which in turn were replaced by Charles Herbert Aslin's Magistrates' Courts, built on the site during 1935. The courts were closed at the beginning of 2004, and after a decade vacant the building returned to use as an office development, Riverside Chambers. This is where Charles Edward Stuart ("Bonnie Prince Charlie" or "the Young Pretender") stayed, 4–6 December 1745. He dined with a widow, Mrs Ward; her son Samuel Ward (born 1732) acted as food taster for the Young Pretender. On the morning of 5 December a council of war was called at Exeter House. The commander of the prince's forces, Lord George Murray, argued that the lack of support from the French and from English Jacobites made success unlikely and retreat necessary. The prince was opposed to a retreat, and some members of the council objected strongly to giving up their advance on London. Meeting with the council again later in the day, the prince took the decision to retreat, and he left Exeter House the following morning. He gave Ward's mother a diamond ring in thanks for their service before he left. The decision to retreat meant that the Young Pretender would not take George II's crown and his army returned to Scotland, where they were finally defeated in 1746 at the Battle of Culloden. After the death of the 8th Earl of Exeter in 1754, the house was sold in 1757 by his widow to John Bingham, Mayor of Derby for that year. Bingham lived at the house until his death in 1773 after which, in 1795, Jedediah Strutt purchased it. Strutt lived there until his death in 1797. The last owner was a lawyer, William Eaton Mousely, twice Mayor of Derby, who, after making some alterations in the 1830s, had the house demolished in 1854, believing Exeter House to be too large to maintain, and also to allow improvements to Exeter Bridge. A timber footbridge had been built by the Binghams of Exeter House to access their gardens on the other side of the River Derwent.On visiting Exeter House in 1839 Lord Stanhope noted the drawing room on the first floor, the room in which the final council of war was held, as being "…unaltered, it is all over wainscotted with ancient oak, very dark and handsome…". It was reached by a dark oak staircase, with carved balustrades. Another visitor, a Mrs. Thomson, described the house as standing back from Full Street within a small rectangular court. The wide staircase ascended from a small hall to the drawing room; on either side of the drawing room were small panelled rooms which had served as the bedrooms for the prince and his officers. A spacious drawing room on the ground floor (altered by Mousely) gave access to a long garden, enclosed between high walls, which led down to the riverside. Mousely had intended to sell off the panelling from the house in separate lots. However an appeal by the MP for Derby Michael Thomas Bass, the Earl of Chesterfield and William Bemrose among others persuaded Mousely to call off the sales. The panelling of the drawing room was instead removed to the cellars of the Derby Assembly Rooms. It was later reassembled within Derby Museum and Art Gallery when the museum opened in 1879. In 2021 the exhibition of the Exeter Room in Derby was reconfigured and the mannequin of the prince was gifted to the Battle of Prestonpans [1745] Heritage Trust which displays it in the Museum & Jacobite Heritage Centre at Prestonpans Town Hall. Below is an extract from Stephen Glover's History of Derby (1843): Exeter House, the mansion house which communicates with the Full Street, from its connection with the history of this county, in the year 1745. At that time it belonged to the Earl of Exeter, and Prince Charles Edward, commonly designated "the Young Pretender," took up his abode there, and held his Council of War in a fine old oak wainscoted room (now used as a drawing-room) before he determined to abandon his project. This house was subsequently occupied by an ancestor of the late celebrated William Strutt, esq., and by other families, and is now the residence of William Eaton Mousley, esq., to whom it belongs.