“ The old books are not likely to perish; the men and women who know the old tales are dying every year. But where you have one man ready and willing to collect folk-lore or dialect, you find a hundred who want to advance theories or to write little grammars. The armchair of the study is so much more comfortable than a rush-bottomed chair in a cottage.
In Derbyshire we have folk-lore which is common to other parts of Great Britain, just as Great Britain has folk-lore which is common to other parts of Europe. ”

“ From the busy world outside one entered a little haven of peace and rest within the gates. The main entrance to Renishaw, which was immediately off the road, led by wooden doors between stone piers into a close court, the walls being planted round with fruit trees and the borders with flowers, and so by a broad paved walk between two grass plats to the steps of the porch. The building itself was of the usual Jacobean type, with mullioned windows protected by string-courses, gables and cupola tiled with stone, and battlemented roof over the hall. ”

“ Imagine an agricultural people without any knowledge of the seasons or months of the year, save from the gradual changes from cold to warm weather, and from long to short days; without the means of estimating the length of the latter, and without even the power of numbering the years or knowing whether they themselves were young or old, for except, perhaps, in the calm pools of water, their very appearance would be strange to them. ”

“ OLD COUNTRY LIFE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY By Sir George Reresby Sitwell, Bart., F.S.A.
The charm of country life, as we know it in England, lies almost as much in old associations as in scenery and sport. An ancient hall without its records is a body without a soul, and can never be fully enjoyed until one has learnt something of the men and women whom it has sheltered in the past—of their lives and manners, their love affairs, their wisdom, and their follies; how the oak furniture gave way to walnut, and the walnut to mahogany ”

“ Even the Folk-lore Society, instead of collecting fresh material—and there is plenty to be had—has been printing, under the name of County Folk-lore, a farrago of material from local histories and guide-books, of which not one item in twenty was worth reproducing. Far different is the work of such men as Kristensen, whose labours in Denmark should have been taken as a model of what should be done in England. Not every day could a man be found to dine on potatoes or sleep on the table of a workman’s cottage, as Kristensen has done, in order to secure a ballad or a tradition. ”

“ After rousing the county both at Chesterfield and Wirksworth, he marched with a small force to Derby, which he entered on the thirty-first of October, 1642, where he was joined by one of the leading gentlemen of the south of the shire—Sir George Gresley. It would take far more space than can here be afforded to give even the barest outline of the ups and downs of the sad civil strife that raged throughout Derbyshire, for the most part in favour of the Commonwealth, for the next few years. ”

“ The love of generations of Derbyshire men for the fabric of this glorious church, and the jealous pride with which they defended its ancient privileges, are matters of history; and if it is not possible now to trace to a common original the distinguishing features of the churches of the county in general, which would, in all probability, have had their prototype in All Saints’, the ever-to-be-regretted reason is that the whole of the venerable building, with the exception of the tower at the west end, has disappeared—wantonly and wilfully destroyed in February, 1722–3. ”

“ Indeed, I should never have persevered with it had I not early come under the influence which an old house so often exercises upon those who live under its roof; sometimes for evil, as when a family inheritance of ill-health depends upon faulty drainage or a waterlogged soil; sometimes as a spur to ambition, an incentive to effort, or a liberal education in art.
My father died when I was two years old, and at the time I first went to school we used to spend but a few months in the summer at our old home at Renishaw, in Derbyshire. ”

“ I have met with no earlier recorded example of a rood-light endowment in Derbyshire than of that at Breadsall. Its charter is dated 1330, on the Sunday after the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary. By this instrument one Geoffrey, “the Reve” (or steward) , son of Ranulph de Breydishale, gives and concedes half an acre of land in Breadsall to the light of the Holy Cross in the church there, “in pure and perpetual alms for ever, freely, quietly, well and in peace.” ”

“ When the circle was constructed, the “pointer,” instead of being a point to the west of south as it is now, a variation owing to the obliquity of the earth’s axis, stood exactly due south; therefore the seer, sighting from the point of the central monolith, knew that when the sun was directly over it the time was mid-day—the greater distance assisting the accuracy. Similarly the east stone is now a point to the southward, so when the sun rose over the horizon in line with it and the central monolith, it was the May festival, and so on for every phase of the sun. ”

“ The inner courtyard with which I have just dealt is far better preserved than its southern neighbour, which seems to have proved a better mark for Gell’s big guns and Halton’s destructive genius than the other. The entrance gate to the inner court is fairly well preserved, but the greater part of the rest is in but a sorry plight. The great entrance on the east is shorn of its upper storey, but the adjoining barn is in a delightful state of repair, and is of a nature to arouse the enthusiasm of students of our mediæval barns. ”

“ Not only are they interesting as a guide to the evolution of style, but also in their variety of size and importance. There is the small and ancient Peak Castle; the comparatively modern palace of Chatsworth; the great house of Haddon, with work of every century from the thirteenth to the seventeenth; the extensive ruins of Wingfield; the splendid remains of Bolsover; while among the dales and on the hill sides of the northern parts of the county are many diminutive manor houses, like Offerton and Highlow, or Snitterton and North Lees. ”

“ At Hardwick, the old custom of building round a court, which we have met with at Haddon and Wingfield, was abandoned; the idea of adopting defensive precautions had no part in its arrangement—it was frankly intended for display and cheerfulness. But the courtyard still survived up and down the country, although rather for convenience than for defence. In some cases it became so contracted as to be little more than a well, admitting a modicum of light and air. Such contracted courts are both cheerless and insanitary, especially when they were made the meeting place of the household drains ”

“ Amongst the many thousands of letters and papers at Renishaw, it was not my good fortune to discover any of real historical importance. This collection is not, of course, to be named in the same breath with the Paston letters, nor can it be compared, either in bulk or in interest, with the Rutland, the Talbot, or the Verney manuscripts. Yet even the correspondence of an undistinguished family may illustrate the history of earlier times. ”

“ Several garrisons on the confines of the county, such as Newark, Tutbury, and Welbeck, still had power and means to levy contributions on the adjacent parts of Derbyshire, and to ruin those who denied them. Moreover, the Scotch army had been for a time very chargeable to the county, for they not only claimed free quarters, but supplied themselves with what horses they required. And now, to crown all, the King’s army had passed through, and made spoil of a great part of the county. Some of the Parliament forces had come to their help, and more were daily expected ”