This is a
1928 British Ordnance Survey map (click on it for a high resolution image). The strip running down it is the fabric the paper was mounted on (in small panels) to make it hard wearing and easy to fold. If you look carefully, you can see the millpond; which the shop looks out over in the centre of the village, to the right of
'Scarthin Nick' and above and slightly to the right of the 'd' in 'Cromford' (lower middle). Incidentally, Scarthin Nick is a double formation, meaning Nick Nick . The Nick is now often assumed to be the cutting through the rock that lets the Derby Road through to Matlock Bath, but in fact it is the old name for the street called Scarthin and the houses on the hillside along and above it. Maybe the Nick was just a short cut to the old Bonsal Road via Ball Eye, maybe it referred to an old gap through the rocks that gave a rough access to the Matlock Gorge, maybe it referred to the narrows between Scarthin Rock and Allen's Hill through which the old road down Cromford Hill goes in order to reach the Ford at the Bend, or the Bent Ford, namely Cromford.
Geographically not much has changed in the last 70 years although, sadly, children can no longer happily play on the main road through the village. Over to the right and up a bit is Dethick; setting for Alison Uttley's 'A Traveller in Time' and the Via Gellia; the wooded valley to the left of Scarthin Nick, was home to D.H. Lawrence during the First World War.
Scarthin Books are Agents for the Ordnance Survey and we do our best to stock their entire range apart from the very large scale maps. If you are a walker or climber we recommend the laminated Outdoor Leisure series (No.24 is the White Peak).We also stock many types of road atlas and specialist maps for the cyclist along with maps that cover the more unusual bits of the Earth - street maps of Ulan Bator have been requested.We also have a stock of second hand maps.
If you are looking at a map of the U.K. we are about 125 miles north(ish), via the M1, from London, bang in the middle of England, so that the choice, very occasional, for day-trips to the sea depends entirely on weather, whim and high water; it takes the same time going east or west. The nearest large towns are Derby (16 miles) and Chesterfield (12 miles) with the cities of Sheffield (23 miles) and Nottingham (25miles) nearby, while Stockport, Stoke and Manchester are not much further.We are at the bottom end of the Pennine Chain;the high ground that forms the backbone of England, and just two miles outside the Peak District National Park. We survive because we are easily reachable (and well worth reaching) from the many towns of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire and from further afield via Rail, the A38 and the M1. Cromford is a traffic hub, surrounded immediately by high and wild rocks, woods and pastures.
This map is about fifteen years old and again little has changed. The main difference, if you are driving to visit us, is traffic lights at the junction with the A6 and the relocation of the pedestrian crossing. It is usually possible to park in the Market Place, a little way up Cromford Hill, in Scarthin itself or across the Dam in Water Lane, but there is Parking for Mars across the A6 and down by Cromford Mill, the Meadows and the Canal, about 600 yards away.