Ilkeston

With a population of just over 37,000, Ilkeston is the third largest town in Derbyshire. It received its royal charter for a market and fair in 1252, and the market and fair continue to flourish to this day. The market place is brought to life every Thursday and Saturday offering an excellent range of goods, from toys, confectionery and greeting cards to electrical goods, books and clothes. The Charter Fair, held in October each year, is one of the oldest and largest in Europe and an event not to be missed. The history of the town, however, goes back even further to when it was an Anglo-Saxon hilltop settlement known as Tilchestune.

Once a mining and lace-making centre, a history of the town’s industrial past is told in the award-winning Erewash Museum, housed in a fine Georgian house with Victorian extensions on the High Street. It was a family home and then part of a school before becoming a Museum in the 1980s. Many original features survive including a restored Edwardian kitchen and wash house. The garden has unrivalled views across the Erewash Valley. Other fine examples of elegant 18th-century houses can be found in East Street while, in Wharncliffe Road, there are period houses with art nouveau features. Despite the town’s industrial outlook, parks, trees and flower beds are a feature of the community and there is some pleasant countryside around the town.

The Parish Church of St Mary has undergone many changes since it was first erected in the 12th century. It is particularly notable for its window tracery, especially in the six windows in the older part of the church. A former tower and elegant spire were destroyed by storm in 1714. Only the tower was rebuilt, to be succeeded by another on the old foundations in 1855. This tower was then moved westwards in 1907, at which time the nave was doubled in length. One intriguing feature it has retained throughout all these changes is its 13th-century archway. The organ is also distinguished, in that it originally came from a London church and is known to have been played by the great Mendelssohn himself.