Matlock >
Sep 2017+
mæðel assembly, council + āc Old English (an) oak tree. Population - 9,543.
UK
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England
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Derbyshire
Sep 2017+
Not quite the Peak District, proper, but near enough since it's only five miles away by road but less than one by flying crow. It's also not to be confused with Matlock Bank or Matlock Green or Matlock Dale or Matlock Bath although, nowadays, it's all just about joined up but with a little bit of a gap to the bath.
Parking in town is best described as problematic but more on that in a minute so head for the public parking next to the big Sainsbury™s and the train station should you be shopping or spotting, or neither.
That'll add 10 minutes to your trek but doesn't distract from a little bit of Matlock magic.
Left and over the bridge, it's evident that Wetherspoon™s couldn't get their hands on the original Crown Hotel although that's something they've generally managed to do Nationwide.
Looking down on town is the former Riber Castle, which while never really a castle functioned until fairly recently as a zoo, of sorts.
There were claims of animal cruelty and it closed in 2000 with activists liberating several lynx into Lumsdale. Rumours of sightings persist today and it's a hairy drive up, they say, to what may or may not be private apartments now.
Better-than-satisfactory lodgings that's more Matlock Dale, really, but still just a 15-minute trot to town.
Named after the geographical feature opposite from which people can be seen dangling most days. When it's said 'people', what's really meant is total nutjobs, actually.
The Spoons have a tradition of naming their pubs based on the history of the town or the old building they invariably inhabit. The inevitable offering in a town of this size is called the Crown, an old hotel.
There are no awards for their nearly-out-of-date ale and none for the Director of Contrived Waterhole Naming, neither, who was clearly on holiday or couldn't be bothered to get out of bed that day.
Whoever deputised on the decision is getting an immediate (0/5) for a lack of imagination and they might as well have stayed in bed themselves that morning.
It doesn't get any better, it's not even the original building, that was nearby enough but it's long gone, and it also gave name to a public square that's now a mini-roundabout.
*** BREAKING NEWS *** Matlock no longer has a Wetherspoon™s after the River Derwent broke the banks in 2019 but more on that in a minute. Settle instead for the Ostello Lounge with one eye on your pint and the other on the pluviometer.
Looking up Bank Road from the bottom of town, awareness is heightened further by a grand old chimney.
Smedley's Hydro opened in 1853 when local industrialist John Smedley started to believe the benefits. He was convinced that Hydrotherapy had cured his bout of 'Spanish tummy' that had lingered longer than he would have liked after a European jaunt.
Piping in the, already well-known, water, Matlock gained spa status and them new-fangled trains helped ship 'em in. It would be nice to say that Matlock Bank was went up but it's aptly named and the lodgings had yet to be located.
No, the waters were taken later, well, mainly water with some boiled barley, yeast and hops in it.
Not that Smedley would have approved. By 1870 he was a staunch Methodist and abstemist and despite his philanthropy, he's the man behind Riber Castle, an indulgent pad for just him and the wife.
With the castle converted and Derbyshire Council now parked in the Hydro, his legacy lives on just south at Lea Mills, the branded, high-end apparel a nod to his origins in cotton.
The River Derwent cuts through town and provides a pleasant setting for the Victorian Hall Leys Park, which in turn provides occasional flood relief from the Derwent.
Not a bandstand this, that's behind, but a tram shelter while you were waiting to go back up the bank. They ran until 1927, which is around the same time that SlyBob decided not to bother.
Just like the river, the bridge runs one way and has done since 2007 when there were two words... gridlock!
You're still supposed to divert north and back down Dale Road via the Sainsbury™s 'bypass' and based on today's experience, that might not be a bad idea.
Tempted in by the tuk-tuk on top, it's not a promising start in this ridiculously busy restaurant but normal service is soon resumed.
That means there's plenty of time to do a double-take at a vindaloo virgin using a knife and fork to eat... a poppadom! That might be terribly good table manners, mate, but it's not particularly practical, pal, as you dodge the flying onion.
There's more of the Victorian over the bridge and quite possibly the grandest ever entrance to a, very different kind of, Matlock bank.
Yes, this is already starting to be a struggle because Matlock's really a base, a base for the fields and hills of the Peak District and a handful of, largely industrial-themed, attractions nearby.
Come sundown, Dale Road is home to most of Matlock's fleshpots and a broad age of partakers including dreamy, dispirited youth.
One dapper young chap with a good line in patter had worked the cruise ships where he might have asked you to... 'pick a card, any card.' It's known not to be for everyone but he keeps some foam balls up his sleeve for such occasions and SlyBob were suitably misdirected.
He has an aura and a confidence that someone not yet out of their teens simply shouldn't and, you heard it here first, he's the new Dynamo. Liam goes by the stage name Laylo but he's missed a local trick...
Ladies and gentlemen... The Amazing Hydro!
Amongst the debauchery on Dale Road, this looks to be the pick of the pubs, probably. Formerly called MoCa, it's not known if they've retained the indie-pop artwork but they still have the crafty brews and gin.
It was in here when it was only just realised just how big a 'thing' gin is, these days, and how Fever-Tree™ tonic is, quite frankly, overpriced and no, Bob don't want no red peppercorns in it, thanks.
On the plus side, and outside, Laylo's magic balls.