A FASCINATING "then and now" photographic look at some of Derby's most iconic street scenes is contained within the pages of a new book by historian Maxwell Craven.
Derby Through Time takes readers on a stroll through the streets of our city showing how some have changed out of all recognition while others retain a striking similarity to their appearance many decades ago.
Maxwell has chosen 90 street scenes from across the city, some dating back to 1765, to illustrate this 96-page paperback book. He explained the thinking behind the latest in an impressive list of history-themed publications.
"Derby is an exceptional and underrated city. It was an important centre of the Midlands Enlightenment, boasting Dr Erasmus Darwin and John Whitehurst among its 18th-Century residents. It produced an artist of international repute in Joseph Wright and has been a centre for the production of fine porcelain and fine clocks for almost three centuries.
"It was a county town for five centuries and was, in its Georgian heyday, much admired by writers such as Daniel Defoe. This fascinating selection of photographs traces some of the many ways in which Derby has changed and developed over the last century.
"I have sought to combine views that seem to be unchanging, with examples of moderate change and, indeed, wholesale transformation. While none of us are against change, what tends to emerge is that, in Derby, it has been unnecessarily drastic; the replacement buildings have been of notably poor quality on the whole.
"Yet, despite the best endeavours of a peculiarly unappreciative and iconoclastic bunch of city fathers over the years, many of its fine Georgian and Regency features have managed to survive and Derby is still a city of which its citizens can be proud."
Derby Through Time, by Maxwell Craven, is published by Amberley Publishing (ISBN 978-1-4456-4052-5. It is priced £14.99 and is also available in iBook formats.
