Iclok - Just another memory of when we used to cycle (then I had a "sit up and beg" one which had a back pedal brake, which was later changed to a Dawes Tartan Clubman with benelux gears! - after then we cycled off to Buxton instead, via Ashbourne, Leek and Axe Edge!) down in South Derbyshire in an evening in the late 40's, as well as visiting Anchor Church and other villages, we also went to Twyford to watch the ferry which was still operating across the River Trent which can be a fiercesome river in flood (it demolished the Cavendish Bridge on the A6 at Shardlow when the snows of the very bad winter of 1947 melted, this was the only main road south to London [no motorways then] out of Derbyshire, the army had to rapidly build a Bailey bridge which sufficed until the new bridge was built - another piece of useless information!) . It was a very tiny hamlet from memory. Incidently a lot of Derbyshire lead miners migrated to Wales in the 18th century especially from Youlgreave and Ashover (from memory didn't some of the miners work at Halkyn, also in the mines in the area around Wrexham as John Twigg Esq., Gentleman from Holme Hall, Bakewell [cousin to my John Twigg of Sycamore House, Bonsall], who was a lead merchant owned lots of lead mines there in the mid to the late 1700's - he owned an estate at Wrexham and was Lord Lieutenant of Denbeighshire, he subsequently went bankrupt and died, his Derbyshire mines were advertised for sale in the Derby Mercury in the 1770's) there were routes over to Wales from south Derbyshire, and I have recently read of mention of oxen drawing carts containing "pigs" of lead being transported from Derby down to the port of Southampton. I'll look more into this subject of transport, it's very interesting. There are lots of articles on the Turnpikes in the old Derbyshire Archaeological Society's Journals. Also when you do finally make it to South Derbyshire don't forget the gypsum deposits around Chellaston, when I studied geology we visited the brick works there, again they closed soon afterwards. If you want to see fine examples of Alabaster work on tombs do include a visit to Breedon-on-the-Hill church on your trip south. Again, apologies for going off topic.
Incidently in our discussion on slate and tiles, we've forgotten to mention the old clay pan tiles which were commonly used in Derbyshire and many othe places for roofing in historical times, deposits of clay being found on the edge of coal measures both to the east and west, where there was also ironstone mines. Pan tiles were easily broken and over the centuries would have disintergrated, hence hardly any trace of them left only in archaeological digs, which made it interesting to read about the two Roman slates.
Got to fly, daughter and three grandsons on their way to visit, if I'm caught wasting time on the p.c. I'm for the high jump and a lecture!