Last October seems now so long ago. Linda and I had gone to Matlock to look after two of our grandchildren for a couple of days in what turned out to be a small family emergency.
I took a few photographs on the walk back from taking the girls to school, and then went out later in the day for some exercise. Matlock is a pretty hilly kind of place, so I got plenty of it.
Matlock Bank is an area on a hill that rises up from the riverside at the centre of Matlock, with Bank Road rising pretty steeply up the hillside. It doesn’t have any banks on it, though there are some shops, the post office and police station close to the bottom, several churches higher up as well as offices for the local council and, close to the top those for Derbyshire County Council in what used to be Smedley’s Hydro.
It was this hydro, and other similar smaller establishments that made Matlock the town it is, and the spa became an important tourist centre in the nineteenth century. I knew, having done my research earlier in The Crown.
In 1893 a cable-hauled tramway opened on Bank Road, “Tuppence up, Penny Down” for the ride up around 300ft of hill on the world’s steepest tramway on public roads, a gradient of 18% – 1 in 5½. Unfortunately it was closed in 1927, with the council who ran it replacing it with a motor bus service.
There are still buses. Occasionally, though I didn’t see one while out for my walk. But I was glad I hadn’t brought my bike. I just don’t have the gears forgetting up 1 in 5½ – or the brakes for going down.
More pictures on My London Diary in Matlock Town Walk.