This would be almost the first view the early travellers would have had of High Tor when they entered the Dale from the northern end in the early years of the twentieth century. Writers describe the scene so eloquently in various tourist guides^[1]. Minus the rather conspicuous telegraph poles, of course! It is hard to know when these telegraph poles were put in, but ones of this size appear in images around 1905-10; this photo was taken either in 1908 or possibly a few years before that.

The photographer would have been standing almost on the boundary between Matlock and Matlock Bath to take his picture. Just round the bend is Artists' Corner. The road on the right that rises quite steeply up the hill used to be little more than a trackway. It goes to Common Wood and you can reach The Rocks, Cliff House, St. John's Church and Masson Farm as well as access a footpath to Matlock Bath^[2].

The River Derwent is not far to the left of the wall where the two girls are walking and High Tor, topped by the High Tor Grounds, are its the far bank.

On the very edge of the right of the photo is the glasshouse that was in the grounds of "Ferry Cottage". Years earlier the ferry was available from here and was where, in 1851, the Matlock and Matlock Bath carrier Mrs. Betty Brinsley lived^[3]. She first advertised in Pigot's Directory, 1831^[4].

References (coloured hyperlinks are to transcripts elsewhere on this web site):

^[1] See the Guides Index for transcripts or read Adam's "Gem of the Peak"

^[2] Mason farm and the top of Cliff house can be seen on Matlock Bank from Masson

^[3] The greenhouses are shown on Matlock, The Quarries and there is more information about Betty Brinsley on the same page. She can also be found in the Dale in the 1841 census and the 1851 census.

^[4] See her entries in Pigot's Directory, 1831 and Pigot's Directory, 1842 - scroll down to the bottom, under Coaches.