An early Edwardian coloured postcard of Matlock Bath, which shows both South Parade and the Heights of Abraham.

You can see The Pitchings rising steeply up the hillside next to Hodgkinson's Hotel. Hodgkinson's has a very large oval signboard. From Hodgkinson's and along the parade towards us, as far as the building with the long arched window, was originally all part of the Great Hotel. If you compare this postcard with the black and white image of South Parade in 1909 elsewhere on this web site, you will notice that the long window was divided into two on the slightly later postcard^[1].

Queen Victoria - then Princess Victoria - visited South Parade in 1832 with her mother, the Duchess of York. They were staying at Chatsworth and went to Belper to inspect Strutt's cotton works. On the return journey they stopped in Matlock Bath and visited several spar shops. They "then proceeded to Mr. Vallance's and Mrs. Mawe's museums, where they alighted and made several purchases, and after visiting Mr. Pearson's petrifying well, they entered the carriages, and drove off on their way to Chatsworth amid the deafening cheers of the multitudes^[2]". Mrs. Mawe's Museum was in the building with the large bay window.

The large building with the sun blind, on the right hand side, used to stand next to the fish pond. It was used by the Boden's as a restaurant and dining rooms until the end of WW1 and then changed use. This was where the glove factory was^[3]. Fire destroyed the building in 1929 and it had to be demolished. Next door was The Great Petrifying Well. There is a horse and cart outside the building.

The cobbled entrance way, on the left, belongs to The Fish Pond Hotel. There are also cobbles at the road edge.

References (coloured links go to more information elsewhere on this web site):

^[1] See South Parade, 1909 card.

^[2] "The Derby Mercury", Wednesday, October 31, 1832 contains a fuller report of the visit to Matlock Bath, although it had been briefly reported in the same newspaper the week before.

^[3] See Matlock Bath's Glove Factory.