Derbyshire Heritage: charting the cultural heritage of Derbyshire

Welcome to the series of articles that we’ll be publishing over the next few months that illustrate to you the rich cultural heritage of the County of Derbyshire and the City of Derby.

  Montage of Derbyshire scenes

In the first in the Derbyshire Heritage series we profiled Musicians through the ages with Derbyshire and Derby City associations.   Derbyshire is a vibrant county and is home to many fantastic contemporary musicians, so it will perhaps be no surprise to read that some of the greatest (and the ridiculously famous!) musicians have composed, taken inspiration from or have heralded from the County.  

The second article covered film, TV and actors and we also made a round up of artsderbyshire filmmakers, scriptwriters, actors and organisations currently working in the county too.  Derbyshire is a beautiful county and so it is a natural choice for International film-makers as a location for big mainstream films and TV series alike.  Derbyshire is also the birth place of many actors and some of film and television’s great stars have chosen to live within the County. 

The third instalment covered the Dance heritage of the County and introduced you to artsderbyshire dancers, dance practitioners, groups and organisations in the Dance industry today by contrast. Places to visit if you are on a cultural tourist trail were covered in our fourth instalment covering a whistlestop tour of the grand houses, halls, mansions and castles in the County and we pulled together their opening dates and times for you too.

The fourth installment, about Writers who've hailed from the County or taken inspiration from it, covers some surprising people such as Dr Samuel Johnson who produced the most accomplished English Dictionary that stood the test of time, to more recognised writers associated with Derbyshire such as George Eliot and D H Lawrence. 

There is also a Well dressing article, that runs through the different well dressings happening around the county over the summer, with a brief history of what well dressings are as well as some beautiful photographs of Derbyshire well dressings from previous years.

Look out for our  Festival Round-up article, which summarises the wide range of festivals happening around Derbyshire, from food and drink to folk and dance.

Simultaneously, Derbyshire County Council have launched a Blue Plaque scheme where they invited the people of Derbyshire to vote for who they think most worthy of such an award.  Check out the Blue Plaques article to uncover more fascinating lives and to cast your vote.

The most recent addition to this series is the Artists piece.  artsderbyshire is all about the arts scene in Derbyshire and so visual artists important to the history of Derbyshire are profiled here.  Many of you will already know the name Joseph Wright of Derby - perhaps the County's best-known artist? But read on to find out many more artists of excellence who have hailed from this place.

Get involved!

If you have information that we haven’t included, then let us know!  Similarly, if you consider yourself the expert on a particular subject, or you simply fancy writing up and getting published some information for this series, then let us know.

Email us at: dap@artsderbyshire.org.uk

Other Heritage articles to come in this series;

  • Artists
  • Derwent Valley World Heritage Site
  • People

About the authors

The Derbyshire Heritage range of articles has been written by Essential New Media's Deborah Porter and Sharon Stevens-Cash.   Essential New Media was appointed by the Derbyshire Arts Partnership to produce an editorial and marketing strategy for the website of which this range of articles is a part.  

Based in North Derbyshire, Deborah is an online specialist providing marketing, editorial and creative leadership.  She has enjoyed a long association in developing the artsderbyshire website and has also worked with a number of arts organisations in the region including City Arts, Nottingham, EMARAN and Smith of Derby. 

Located in South Derbyshire, Sharon specialises in offline marketing and works with a range of companies in the region including Marketing Derby, Blueprint and Derby Cityscape.  She has recently worked on marketing the launch of the newly opened digital arts centre Phoenix Square in Leicester.

If you are interested in getting involved in 2010's editorial or marketing plans, then get in touch with us via dap@artsderbyshire.org.uk


Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Deborah Porter, Bygonederbyshire, Picture the Past, Sharon Stevens-Cash, Carole Crompton, Peak and Fell Walking, The Derby Local Studies Library and Robert Steadman for picture contributions to this series.



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