During the summer holidays I took a day trip to Lincoln by train. I mostly went to mooch around the castle and spend some Waterstones vouchers in the remainders room they have there. As I was on the train, I looked at other destinations and wondered which of them would have the best 18th Century options - having not been to a good eighteenth century related thing for some time.
Derby was the clear winner. The town that Bonnie Prince Charlie (shown above) reached before turning back during the '45 Jacobite rebellion, the town Erasmus Darwin ended up in after Lichfield, the home of the first modern factory, a silk mill founded in 1721 and the home of frequent 18th century science book jacket author, Joseph Wright of Derby.
My first stop was at a little cafe for a fry up and a cup of tea. I knew it was the right place because it was full of old people and seemed to have a nice little community around it, then I found the Eagle bookshop. I can't walk past a second-hand bookshop so I popped in. One of the things I've said about moving to Grimsby is how the charity shops only seem to have those Catherine Cookson, working-class-woman-in-period-costume books. I may be seriously misguided, they may be great books, but they've never appealed to me. This shop was the motherlode of those kind of books, face after face of women in clogs. I didn't find anything for me there, but if you're after regency romance, they have a bookcase full.
My first museum was the Derby Museum and Art Gallery. Not only does it hold a lot of Joseph Wright of Derby paintings, but it's also holding a special exhibition about his candlelight paintings that brings together many of them for the first time in 80 years.
I didn't realise how large his An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump and A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery are, they dominated the room in which they were placed. I thought the writeup was very astute when it said, "Wright's fascination lay not in the scientific principle being demonstrated but in the spectacle of knowledge being kindled." There is a drama to the two paintings, especially the Air Pump which is extremely captivating and enticing. I also really liked the inclusion of a preparatory sketch, both in itself, the goofy unfinished quality of the faces and the fact it became part of the gallery as the payment in missed taxes.
I was also struck by how the experimenter in both paintings has a similar red jacket, but in the Orrey painting, the experimenter is more dignified but in the Air Pump, he has a more alchemist air. Wright also painted an alchemist in a work with the wonderfully long title of, The Alchymist, in Search of the Philosopher's Stone, Discovers Phosphorus, and prays for the successful Conclusion of his operation, as was the custom of the Ancient Chymical Astrologers. It's another dramatic piece, with the titular alchemist glowing in the light of the phosphorus. There were also paintings of people studying sculptures by candlelight and a group of blacksmiths around a forge. The exhibition went into details about the origins of candlelit paintings, Wright's childhood interest in magic lanterns and the box he used to study lighting effects. It was really interesting.
The gallery itself also has a Wright room, featuring non-candlelit pictures, including a portrait of Erasmus Darwin and two that were inspired by Sterne's A Sentimental Journey. I definitely prefer the drama of the candle pictures, but I'd give the others house room.
The museum also includes a section of prehistoric Derby (or pre-Derby), with a mammoth tusk and a rhinoceros skeleton; some remnants of Roman era Derby and a few things from the tussle between the Mercians and the Grand Army of the Vikings. There's even a sarcophagus legendarily associated with the bones of St Alkmund, who was temporarily moved to Derby by Æthelflæd - oh, and a stuffed racing pigeon called The King of Rome.
Towards the back of the museum is a wooden panelled room telling the story of the '45 Jacobite rebellion. It contains a piece of Flora McDonald's dress and a model of eighteenth century Derby. Most peculiarly, the room is lined with the panels from the room where the decision was made to take the Jacobite army back to Scotland instead of moving on to London. Some photos of the museum include a mannequin of Bonnie Prince Charlie, but I'm sad to say that's not there anymore.
My next museum was the Pickford's House Museum. Originally built by Joseph Pickford, the designer of Wedgewood's House, Etruria Hall, it served as his home and showpiece. The rooms in the ground floor are decked out to show how the upwardly mobile Pickfords lived, with their drawing room, large entrance hallway and dining room with more Joseph Wright paintings.
It's a very nicely done house museum, although the kitchen doesn't have the standard regulation pretend food a lot of them have. One oddity is that the house contains a 1930s bathroom and an Edwardian bathroom that also serve as the toilets for the public. It did feel a lot like visiting someone's house.
Things get weird on the second floor with a special exhibition about Lara Croft. I didn't realise that the Tomb Raider games were created in Derby, but the people of Derby definitely do. There are a number of rooms containing the computers used to code the game, props from the films and various models, magazine covers and posters of the star herself - though not a lot about how controversial the character was at times. There's also a chance to play the original game on PlayStation. I had it on PC and playing it here reminded me why I never got past the first level and why I don't play computer games.
The top floor contains one of the country's largest collections of toy theatres (of course). The first production to be held in a Derby theatre was of Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer and it was also where the debut production of Dracula was held. While I enjoyed all three of my museum visits, Pickford's House was my favourite, it was quirky and charming.
My last museum was The Museum of Making, held in the Lombe's silk mill, it was opened in 2021 after a £17 million refurbishment. It's certainly the most impressive of the three museums to walk into, with a disassembled car and a Roll's Royce jet engine hanging from the ceiling.
The first gallery is about the mill itself, the result of industrial espionage, it was the first of the mills along the Derwent that later included Arkwright's famous mill. These buildings revolutionised the world, and the stretch of the river where they were built is now a Unesco world heritage site. The museum doesn't shy away from the child labour and environmental impact of these buildings either. The rest of gallery is a showcase of things built in and near Derby, from chimney pots to a mini nuclear reactor developed by Roll's Royce. It also features Erasmus Darwin's microscope and a copy of Flamsteed's map of the stars - with illustrations by Hogarth's father-in-law, James Thornhill.
The second floor holds 'assemblage'. Billed as "not your average museum display", it's a collection of objects organised by the material that made them. It struck me as a bit odds-n-sods, a jumble sale of random items. I asked the volunteer on the floor about it and they confirmed it was a space to put things.. many of them a little underwhelming - lots of chimney pots. I did very much enjoy the placement of these two railway signs though.
The third floor had a little exhibition that seems to mainly serve as an advertisement for the John Smedley company, who make £240 jumpers. The rest of the floor is a pay-to-entry hot decking area.
The Museum of Making is a very strikingly presented museum but I found it a little lacking. I think what it needed were more human stories. During Easter I went to the Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet in Sheffield and that's crammed full of the stories of the people that worked there. The Museum of Making was a little colourless in comparison, especially after the utterly charming Pickford's House.
All in all, I very much enjoyed my Derby trip and I recommend it as a very decent 18th century day out.
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