I have to admit a certain amount of laziness and a worrying inability to make a decision on this one, as I left it right up to the last minute to go anywhere on a sunny winters day, determined to beat the post Christmas blues.
Having not been out for a while, I had numerous idea’s on where to take the Nikon, yet just couldn’t decide on any one particular destination and so I took the easy option and got the Train to the nearest city to Sheffield.
Having been to Derby many times, I was still pontificating on the short train journey following the river Derwent down the Amber Valley, wondering what the hell I was going to capture in the city with time and light becoming more limited as the day wore on.
In the end, I decided on a good fall back plan and headed to the Cathedral Quarter on Iron Gate, having only ever been there on a typical student night out, fit only for bar flying. For this trip however, I had actually done a modicum amount of homework and knew that there was a dodgy haunted pub with a few tales to tell, nestled under the modest, but charming Cathedral.
After a few wrong turns (never try to memorise a city map), I finally located the quarter with it’s well kept, up market shops away from the soulless Westfield Shopping Centre and enjoyed ten minutes of the last good light to shoot away at the Cathedral and the outside of the adjacent said pub, Ye Olde Blue Dolphin Inne.
Derby’s oldest pub, established in 1530, is made up of 3 rooms of differing odd shapes and sizes, all cut off from each other, connected only by the hub of the multi-inglenooked bar. To gain access from the outside to any of these rooms, one must first enter the cobbled thoroughfare that actually runs right through the centre of The Dolphin, which was once used for access to dwellings, leading to where the car park is now situated.
It was on the cobbles where I met a bemused looking couple, unsure of how to gain entrance to the bar and so buoyed by some fellow self-doubt, I tried a random door of choice, hoped for the best and we entered.
Without knowing it, we had entered the lounge, an oak panelled, cosy room complete with huge fireplace, which took up most of one side of the walls, adjacent to a squeezed in diminutive bar, big enough for two people to stand/serve.
Taking my place at a small table in front of the open fire, under the low ceiling, sporting venerable sunken ebony beams, bowed by the weight of time, it was easy to picture the place as it was in the times of Dirk Turpin around circa 1738.
Nothing much has been altered with the décor of the Inn for many a year it appears, shabby crimson, floral curtains drooped sadly, gathering dust in front of tick-tock frosted windows, keeping out the hustle and bustle of Iron Gate, adding to the historical atmosphere. The remaining walls are interspaced with picture frames of varying sizes and colours filled with historical woodcuts. These range from cheery themes such as Derby Hangings, Derby Courtroom trials, the denizens of Derby Gaol and of course, Master Turpin.
In its colourful history, the Dolphin has acquired its fair share of grisly and grim tales and it is said to have been a stopping-off point for highwaymen, including the notorious Dick Turpin. The Inn billeted a number of Bonnie Prince Charlie's Highland army during their brief stay in 1745 and one of the resident ghosts is claimed to be that of a man in Highland regalia, armed with a sword, running through the passage carrying a woman on his back piggyback style.
Another couplet of ghosts seen frequently, are those of a small girl who sits on the steps leading to the restaurant and a ‘Blue Lady’ which has been seen in most parts of the Inn. She was said to have an affair with Dick Turpin who gave her a blue dress. The landlord at the time, her husband, saw her in the dress and after learning of the affair, made sure she soon disappeared, her corpse concealed in the fabric of the Dolphin after her murder.
After learning of the final, yet most grisly piece of the Dolphin’s history, I decided I would move rooms to the snug. This ultra cosy room was again, entered via the cobbles and had a small fireplace, with room enough for two small tables, its walls bedecked with various ephemera.
The reason for my hastily switch was as follows…The most gruesome story surrounding the Dolphin is that of a young doctor who, in the 18th Century, had a body secretly delivered by two body-snatchers in the dead of night.
The Doctor took the body, that of a young woman, into the cellar under what is now the lounge. In those days that part of the building was a lodging house, in which the doctor had rooms to practice. He began to dissect her by opening up her stomach and pulling out her entrails. It was this moment that she awoke, having been buried alive (probably in a coma). She leapt up from the table and ran round the cellar screaming hysterically, dragging her entrails behind her until she sank to the ground, dead from shock and loss of blood.
The young doctor stood shaking in the corner, splattered in blood and out of his mind; his hair had turned white. His well to do family hushed up the incident and had him put in a lunatic asylum, but the ghost of the girl still screams in the dead of night.
After a quick visit to the main bar, I retraced my steps back to the lounge. The room was now empty, except for the popping, dying embers of the fire. I started taking a few pictures when all of a sudden I head dragging noises from down below in the cellar. I froze for a moment until I realised it was just the draymen delivering barrels of Black Sheep. Still, I decided that this was a good time to leave, lest I saw or heard any of the real horrifying legacies of the Dolphin.
As I headed back out into the waning daylight on to Iron Gate, the last of the sun burning over the city tops, I felt rather relieved to be back in the crisp winter air. I took one last glance of the Dolphin and smiled as I recalled the last story I read before leaving. This involved a spectacular ‘fly-by’ in 1732, when an intrepid aviator fastened one end of a rope to the tower of All Saints church and the other end to St Michael’s. He then slid down the rope with the aid of a wooden breastplate: the flight took eight seconds during which he fired a pistol and blew a trumpet, celebrating his feat with a few pints of Derby Ale.
These days you don’t have to go to such extremes to get a pint at the Dolphin, the friendly bar staff will happily serve you and I thoroughly recommend a visit if you find yourself in the city looking for a place soaked in history. Just remember to listen carefully if you visit the lounge, you may just be able to hear the spirits tortured screams of an awakening, disembowelled corpse…
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