Derbyshire: Amazing Visit to Derby Art Museum

Unfortunately, even a photo permit couldn’t help me here, you are not allowed to publish the photos so for my own use only. It is too bad because this is a great little museum and there are lots of things that I think would have made excellent subjects.

I began my visit in the Origins of Derby Exhibit. The first few cases have to do with the Bronze Age. There are several cases of items such as knives, ax heads, and spearheads. Most of them were found in rivers and marshes. It is not known why these valuable metal items would have been deposited in the Rivers but it may have been part of a ritual.

There are also items found in a Bronze Age barrow. The Bronze Age is 4200-2200BC. People were buried in log coffins and there is a whole display of pottery from this period. Many of these pieces of pottery are from Stanton Moor and others are from Stoney Middleton Dale.

The next section is the Roman period. Jars were used to hold beans and it was the beans that were the important part in this time period. I liked a very pretty Simian Bowl with a hunting scene from the 2nd century CE. The remains of the graves of two children have been preserved; there are two bronze bangle bracelets and a bronze finger ring. 

An interesting find was people in this period were buried with shoes on. These are followed by a case showing a Romano-British kitchen and one with Roman and Medieval Coins.

I personally was fascinated by the bust of a Viking whose grave was discovered outside St Wystan's Church. The artist used the skull to give us a very good idea of what this warrior would have looked like. He died in 873-874. Repton was a mass grave with at least 249 people of which only 5 are women; there are no evident injuries so it was a disease that took their lives.

An Anglo Saxon gravesite reveals lots of information about the lives of these people, an amber necklace, iron knife, silver finger ring and bronze buckle.

The Repton Stone dominates this portion of the Museum; it is what remains of an 8th Century Anglo Saxon Cross. One of the figures on the cross may be Aethalbald, King of Mercia who was murdered and buried at Repton.

One of the most amazing exhibits is in the next room. The Hanson Longboat. This is a Bronze Age Longboat that was discovered in a quarry at Shardlow. It is 3500 years old. Also in this room are several works by George Turner called the Derbyshire Constable.

Up a short set of stairs is the Wright Gallery and it won’t disappoint. Joseph Wright has an amazing way with light and there is a room full of his works, some portraits, and some landscapes. I loved “Cottage on Fire” and Grotto in the Gulf of Salerno.