Here is an early twentieth century photograph of South Parade from my collection; judging by the clothes the women are wearing it was taken post war and probably in the very early 1920s. The photographer was an amateur and this might be the only copy. The picture could have been taken either early one bank holiday morning or late in the day - as there is quite a bit of litter it was probably later on. When it was really busy the pavements and roadway were almost solid with people.

There are two charabancs in the road which were used by the visitors ("trippers"). There are more vehicles parked in the yard on the extreme left. There is a sign on top of the wall but it cannot be read. However, the yard used to be the stabling for Hodgkinson's Hotel.

If you look carefully at the right hand side of the photo, where a group is waiting on the pavement, there is a sign sticking out which is for the Edinburgh Restaurant; it is almost at the edge of the picture. In the 1920s John William Boden was at Edinburgh House and running both the dining rooms and the Derwent Gardens Café^[1]. If you look above, you can just about make out the very edge of Hogkinson's sign and the pole from which it hangs.

The next shop along the Parade is a butchery; it has sheets of white paper hanging on the hooks in the window. The butchery was one of a pair of shops which used to share a doorway, but by the time this photograph was taken there was a door for each shop. A little further along above the huge bay widow the sign facing the photographer reads "MOTORS" although the rest of the sign is indistinct. This was run by E. Williams & Co. Ltd, whose managing direcror was Guy Le Blanc Smith. Next to it is a building with two smaller bays and the central sign on the wall above them reads "THE ROYAL MUSEUM".

Peeping out from amongst the trees on the skyline is the distinctive roof of the Old Pavilion.

References:

^[1] "Kelly's Directory of Derbyshire", both 1922 and 1925