My next location is listed as’Nr Markeaton’.
The painting shows a path or road curving into the distance. Two figures are walking away from the viewer towards a 5 bar gate.
Unsure of where to start I drive to Markeaton Park in Derby. After trudging around it twice I decide it’s the wrong place and consult my map again.
I find the Bonnie Prince Charlie footpath is nearby and it looks promising. Following it out of the park it leads me up a lane towards Markeaton.
I cross over the lane at the point of a hairpin bend to join the footpath again, when I notice it resembles the lay of the land in the picture.
Photographing here is difficult because the hedge is too tall. If I stand on the road it’s a blind bend, so not a good idea. In the end I compromise and photograph the footpath from across the road. It’s likely that this is the place and the 2 figures are either going to,or coming from Mackworth Church.
Thanks to these ancient footpaths the artists are enabling me to walk in their footsteps today.
Twyford in Derbyshire was not a place I’d heard of. When I got there I understood why. It’s a quiet place, just the church, Hall, a few cottages and a farm.
This made it very easy for me to find where my picture of the day was painted. I’m looking for a cottage adjacent to the river but when I look downstream I can only see Twyford Hall. I take the photograph and walk to the church. On the way I see the twin of the cottage in the picture but it’s too far inland and perpendicular to the river. Either a cottage once stood where the Hall is or artist George Robertson used his artistic licence to move it.
An interesting fact about Twyford is that it once had a chain ferry across the river. It was in use until 1963. I suddenly realise that my next location listed only as River Trent Derbyshire is on the other side of the river at Willington. George must have taken this ferry across.
It’s a long way round ending with a bone shaking ride down a very narrow lane. If a tractor comes the other way I’m in trouble. I arrive, more nettles to contend with and I’m on the opposite bank looking over at Twyford. I can hardly believe the scene in front of me, nothing has changed here. Everything is the same as it ever was, apart from the view of the disused cooling towers in the distance…
I’m at Derby Museum and Art Gallery to see The Enlightenment exhibition. My friend, artist Jane Pepper is showing her exquisite assemblages and prints amongst the natural history collection.
As I work my way around the exhibition opening drawers and discovering things, I’m surprised to come across landscape views on Derby porcelain. What a coincidence! I learn that it became fashionable to drink tea and coffee in the late 18thC and country houses made collections of the decorative china.
The yellow tea set in Lincoln came from Chatsworth House. It shows no evidence of being used. More likely it was displayed to show the owners had good taste in art and appreciated quality workmanship.
I have a picture with me of one of the plates which shows Derby Cathedral in the distance with a large area of grass and trees in the forground. Circling around the Cathedral on foot, I try to get as far as possible from it before it’s obscured by other buildings. I take my photograph which is nothing like the image on the plate.
A popular place with the Derby painters was an area called The Meadows. The meadows have gone. All that is left is a pub of that name surrounded by an industrial estate.
Hand painted on a Derby Porcelain teapot stand is a scene of Burley in Derbyshire. It shows a hill and a river with a bend.
My map confirms that the River Derwent flows past Burley Hill and has a distintive bend at that point. A good start. There’s a problem though, no public footpath where I need to go. Not easily thwarted, I go anyway.
I get to Burley and approach the area but I’m stopped in my tracks by a water treatment works with a high perimeter fence. Noticing that the nettles have been trodden down around the fence I decide to go for this narrow path alongside the railway line. I’m regretting wearing shorts straight away but after 10 minutes of struggling through the undergrowth I emerge bitten and stung right into the scene of the painting.
It’s glorious open countryside on this side of the fence. What a shame it’s not a place to roam as it was in Jockey Hill’s day.
I can’t get the photograph to look like the painting because the river bank is treelined so I climb down and photograph into the sun at river level. This makes the hill look tiny but wherever I stand, it’s obvious that he’s increased the height of the hill for dramatic effect.
I’m left wondering how I can prove I’m in the right place on the bend of the river when the answer is in front of me. Suddenly a canoe comes round the bend and I photograph it as it turns. It strikes me as funny that he’s not tresspassing so long as he stays in the canoe but I am.
I decide to get out fast.
Foremark in Derbyshire was farm land in Jockey Hill’s day. It was flooded in the 1970s becoming a reservoir supplying the people of Leicester. At first sight it appears that one beauty spot has been replaced with another. I’ve never been here before and yet it’s within 10 miles of home.
The scenery is stunning and I find an oak tree growing between rocks in the water. I’d like to think it will survive but trees are thirsty too so there’s a conflict of interest. Water snails had taken up residence on beer bottles someone had placed upright in the water. Taking the photo reminded me of a recent exhibition by fellow Socket member Tracey Kershaw. In ‘Talking about Mothers’, she had photographed plastic milk bottles full of water in a garden setting. Along the water’s edge there were lager cans, soft drink bottles, discarded clothes and a lilo near the no bathing and no inflatables sign!
The weekend’s good weather and its inevitable barbecues had left its mark on the landscape and inland beach. There’s nothing here I can replicate from the original painting of Foremark so I settle for the scene in front of me.
