Gelly Babes: Strutting our stuff in Belper

Industrial Belper

20th November 2017

A 1030 meet at CafeG in Belper certainly hit the right spot with Alison, Maggie, Jo, Lynn and the Helens. Having missed Helen M at the last meeting, we were now able to catch up on her wonderful two holidays: cruising around on the Hurtigruten in Norway (did she mention the sea-eagles?) and sterner Stalin stuff in Warsaw. This led to some rather interesting stories about border controls, e:passports and illegal importation of wine onto above mentioned ferry (a wine box, no less!). A slightly more watery tale from Venice has led Alison to check the ‘acqua alta’ for her impending trip. She’s now checking what H&S say about walking on water and wonders whether she will manage it with as much grace as Helen J.

As the sun was beckoning, we set off to discover Belper. And, what an interesting tour it turned out to be! So, we started with a long-distant view of De Bradelei Mill and learned that Queen Victoria’s Brettle stockings were made here, as was Admiral Nelson’s vest, (you know, the one he wears in Trafalgar Square)

Battling on, we headed back from whence we had just come, and took a peek at a rather dilapidated building which turned out to have previously been a blouse factory, the former Thorntons’s toffee factory and a theatre where Gracie Fields once performed and without any encouragement at all (once we’d ruled out “We’ll meet again”), we burst into spontaneous song:

“Sally, Sally, pride of our alley”

Well, no wonder she only performed there once, because there are no alleyways, snickets or ginnels in Belper… only channels.

And at the old corn mill, built by James Webster and enlarged by guess who….

A seasonal tableaux from Acorn Antiques….

With voices thoroughly warmed up, underneath the arch, we posed for another photo to discover that Will Hay, star of Ealing film comedies stayed nearby in Wellington House

“Oh Mr, Porter what shall we do?”

With Helen J very much, not in charge of her group, she showed them where he had stayed, but has apparently mis-led them. As the group were far too busy chatting, the correction is best left to another time.

And so to Belper station of 1878 where Lynn burst into another song and we viewed George Stephenson’s five bridges over the railway line

Cutting edge designs, eh?

Following a footpath, not a channel, and an old ropewalk we then checked out the tarmac surface on Joseph Street:

I’m sure this bit is the original

We then walked through varies channels, past lots of cluster houses and admired the pig-stys and wonky windows.

Wonder why this is called Long Row?

There was a lot of ‘pointing’ as we noticed the ’continuous roofline’, as opposed to the ‘stepped roof line’ and a place to park your horse, but not your car. We also pointed to a lot of Strutt provisions: the school, the church, the houses and oh, so much more, including …

An early beauticians

But it was now time to hit CafeG again..

Spot on with different kind of long row!

With the weather looking decidedly dodgy, Lynn decided to head back home, but not before a group hug with local lass Anne Gibbon! The white hornbeam trees temporarily stumped our knowledge, but have at least been saved by sensible Belper folk.