Free learning resources from arts, cultural and heritage organisations.

Teachers' Notes

This resource uses photographs from the collections of the Peak District Mining Museum as a source of information about Matlock Bath in Victorian times.

 

Painting showing a lot of countryside with buildings in the background
Matlock Bath, Derbyshire

The mining of lead ore, or galena, has been a major industry in Derbyshire for at least 2000 years. The hillsides in Matlock Bath are honeycombed with mine workings, and many people who lived there in the 19th Century would have been miners.

Matlock Bath has always been a beautiful location and its thermal waters attracted tourists from the upper-classes from the late 17th Century onward. In 1849 the railway came to the village, making it more accessible to the middle-class and bringing a new kind of tourist: the day-tripper. This meant that people living in Matlock Bath could also find work in the tourist industry.

Curriculum Links

  • KS2 History: Local history study.
  • KS2 Geography: Human Geography: types of land use, economic activity and the distribution of natural resources.

Learning Outcomes

  • Use a variety of images to draw conclusions about life in the past.
  • Be able to make comparisons between the lives of people from different economic backgrounds in Victorian Britain.
  • Be able to make comparisons between Victorian Matlock Bath and the village today, and with other modern tourist attractions.
  • Conclude from source materials the types of employment that were available in 19th Century Matlock Baths.